There exists nowhere a collected and authentic recital of the
Theosophical Movement of the nineteenth century. Yet, although a scant half century has
elapsed since the foundation of The Theosophical Society at New York City, the work there
begun has spread into all portions of the civilized world, until the word Theosophy is a
familiar term to every educated mind. The teachings known under that name have been more
or less investigated and adopted by millions, while its more earnest students who have
accepted it as a complete and satisfactory explanation of all the problems of life, here
and hereafter, are numbered by thousands in every country and of every race.

In an indirect but none the less powerful manner the teachings of Theosophy have
profoundly affected the ideas and ideals of the race on the great questions of ethics, of
morality, of religion, philosophy and science, so that today it may be truly said that
there is nothing worthy of the consideration of the human mind that has not been leavened
by the injection of Theosophical leaven. It is not too much, therefore, to affirm that the
direct and indirect influence of Theosophy upon humanity in the course of a single
generation has been greater than that of any other system ever promulgated, during as many
centuries as the Theosophical Movement numbers decades. And the Movement can as yet
scarcely be said to have passed the stage of its germinal impulsion.

The record of the Theosophical Movement is scattered through thousands upon thousands
of pages of books, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets and other documents. Many of these are
extremely controversial in character, many inaccurate, many contradictory and confusing.
The attempt to study, digest, collate and compare the im-

--- vii

mense literature of the subject is a monumental undertaking. The writers have spent
many years in connection with the work of the Theosophical Movement, and their
opportunities and facilities have been greater than most. Yet they know only too well the
impossibility of doing anything like justice to the subject, or of affording satisfactory
replies to all questions of the sincere student of its complexities. The very nature of
the subject forbids. For Theosophy, the Theosophical Movement, and the real and true
Theosophical Society have, each of them, an esoteric as well as an exoteric side, and the
latter can never be fully grasped and understood but through the former.

Some of this hidden side can be touched upon, some documents referred to, some
indications submitted, some deductions offered for the consideration of the reflective
mind, but for by far the most important portion of the esoteric aspect the student must
rely upon his own intuition: for the hidden side of Theosophy can only be arrived at
through the hidden nature of the student himself.

Still another difficulty that confronts alike the writers and the sincere student is
the fact that many of those who were active in the lifetime of the parent Theosophical
Society are still living and now prominent, both in the public eye, and as leaders and
exponents of the many conflicting theosophical and occult societies that have sprang up in
the past twenty-five years, since the death of the original society. All these
antagonistic organizations have their devoted adherents, their own particular tenets and
claims of pre-eminence and successorship. The situation exactly parallels that of the
early centuries of Christianity. Rival pretensions to apostolic succession, to knowledge,
to authority, and to the possession of the keys to the teachings of the Founders confront
the inquirer. The danger is imminent that if a better knowledge and understanding of the
real teachings of Theosophy, the real mission of the Theosophical Movement, and the real
facts in connection with the history of the Parent Theosophical Society, are not made
available for

--- ix

all those who may become interested, the fate that has long since overtaken Brahminism,
Buddhism and Christianity will inevitably befall the great Message of H.P. Blavatsky.

For all the reasons expressed and implied, an accessible record of the facts, as
accurate a survey of their significance and bearing on the present and on the future as
possible, is of the utmost moment to all sincere students and to all earnest enquirers.
Themselves members of none of the existing organizations, but profoundly convinced of the
surpassing value of the noble philosophy of Theosophy, the writers are moved to this
attempt to aid the unimpeded flow of the great stream of the Theosophical Movement, not so
much by any belief in their own especial ability as by the conviction that that flow is
being impeded and corrupted by the partisanship and pretensions of the leading exponents
of the existing societies. It is therefore addressed, not to any society or societies, but
to all true Theosophists, whether members of any of the existing organizations or of none,
and to all true enquirers everywhere, who may be willing to accept truth wherever it may
be found, and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice - and their own - straight in
the face.

For the rest, it may be added that the Syllabus which precedes the text will, it
is hoped, be found, both by the general reader and the serious student, to be more
satisfactory than an index. The abundant direct citations and the collateral references
included in the text render superfluous a separate bibliography and will, it is thought,
enable those so minded to verify at first hand every minor as well as major subject
discussed.

The Theosophical Movement the story of Spiritual and Intellectual evolution - Religions
and systems of thought, governments, sects and parties, landmarks of its cyclical
progression through the ages -The Reformation, Free Masonry, the American Republic, the
abolition of human slavery, all steps - "divine right" of God and the
"divine rights" of kings alike obstacles to progress - all physical evolution
preceded and accompanied by intellectual and moral growth - upward impulses due to the
inspiration of higher evolved Intelligence - they work through appropriate channels -
modern signs of the Theosophical Movement abundantly in evidence - Western interest in
oriental philosophy and religion - the great influence of the "Light of Asia" -
the tremendous effect of Darwin's "Origin of Species" on prevailing religious
ideas of "creation," God and Nature - Buckle's intuitive perception of the rise
of new religions and philosophies - the great work of iconoclasts like Ingersoll and
Bradlaugh of liberal preachers like Kingsley and Channing - the Bastilles of orthodoxy no
longer impregnable - Spiritualism an index of the transitional state of mind in religion -
phenomena and forces ignored by Science - the writings of Allan Kardec - Spiritualism
devoid alike of morality and philosophy - becomes in a generation the faith of millions -
due to awakening psychic faculties - Madame Blavatsky enters the Western arena - her
exhibition of powers exercised at will - her totally unknown philosophy of Life - her
first efforts made with the Spiritualists.

CHAPTER II. THE PARENT THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY ....... 13

Madame Blavatsky comes to New York in 1873 - meets Col. H.S. Olcott in 1874 at the Eddy
farmhouse - she controls the exhibition of phenomena unknown to the spectators - Olcott a
prominent lawyer and newspaper writer, a life-long Spiritualist - becomes greatly
interested in H.P.B.'s powers and knowledge - introduces her to Wm. Q. Judge, a young
lawyer - Olcott and Judge become pupils of H.P.B. - Olcott's book, "People from the
Other Word," draws public attention to the phenomenal powers of H.P.B. - her
apartment dubbed "the Lamasery" becomes the scene of a never ending throng of
visitors and marvel seekers - Olcott proposes a "Miracle Club," which falls
through - the Theosophical Society established in November, 1875, by H.P.B., Olcott and
Judge other early members - most of them Spiritualists who turn enemies - teachings of
H.P.B. entirely opposed to the theories of Spiritualism - many European and Indian Fellows
join the new Society - The Arya Somaj and Swami Sarasvati - the original Society
democratic in organization - no restrictions on freedom of conscience or liberty of
thought - the "Three Objects" of the Parent Theosophical Society - H.P.B. writes
"Isis Unveiled," published in 1877 - goes with Col. Olcott to India, leaving
Judge in America - rapid growth of the Society in the Orient - early publications and
formation of new "Branches," East and West.

CHAPTER III. "ISIS UNVEILED" ........ 26

"Isis Unveiled" a Master Key to the mysteries of science and religion, modern
and ancient - dedicated to the Theosophical Society with whose "Three Objects"
its teachings are in correlation - discusses the roots of all religion, the negations of
science, and the phenomena of Spiritualism - declares all three before a blank wall only
to be penetrated by recourse to the wisdom of the ancient sages - affirms the existence of
the Wisdom-Religion as the true Source of the Theosophical Movement in all ages - H.P.B.
avows her own intimate acquaintance with living Adepts - phenomenal powers over space,
time and matter - proves the fallacies of "exact" science by the testimony of
its own exponents - all claims of religious "infallibility" mere theological
dogmas - raised her voice for spiritual freedom and enfranchisement from all tyranny
whether of Science or Theology - postulates a double evolution, spiritual and intellectual
- the Wisdom-Religion the only philosophy which can reconcile faith and knowledge -
Metempsychosis, in its esoteric sense - the solution of the "missing links" in
Science and the mysteries that baffle religionists - ancient Magic a Divine Science
- Cyclic Law, or Karma, the explanation of the rise and fall of civilizations - the
periodic destructions and renovations of Nature - every problem of existence solved by the
Wise Men of old - the secret and unbroken chain of the Adepts of the Great Lodge - the
great propositions of Occultism - there is no miracle, everything under Law (Karma) -
Spirit, Mind and Matter the evolving Trinity in Nature and in Man - Adeptship versus
Mediumship - the Trinity of Nature the lock of Magic - the Trinity of Man the Key that
fits it.

CHAPTER IV. EARLY DAYS OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.... 42

The Theosophical Society an attempt to form a human association on the basis of the
Lodge of Adepts, pure Altruism - H.P.B. not deceived in regard to the obstacles to
be met - sectarian religious prejudices, the great barrier to true Fraternity - the Second
Object of the T.S. - the idea of "miracles" and materialistic hypotheses of
modern science the great enemies of true knowledge, hence the Third Object - Man
inherently perfectible, not a mortal fallible being - Adepts the living proof of the
divinity inherent in every man - the Wisdom-Religion can be known and its Adepts found by
any sincere man - the real enemies of human welfare - bound to array themselves against
H.P.B., her Society and her mission - who those enemies are - orthodox religions,
materialistic science, pseudo-scientists, pretended authorities - the mercenaries
and parasites of the press - "Isis Unveiled" neither a revelation nor an
arbitrary theory - a statement of verifiable facts, physical and metaphysical - rests upon
its own inherent worth - the Theosophical Society a body of students - dependent upon
self-induced and self-devised efforts to study and apply the teachings of Theosophy -
rejected and opposed by the Spiritualists, its natural allies, because of its teachings on
after-death states and conditions - greatly helped in the East because of the natural
mysticism of the inhabitants - Swami Sarasvati and his Arya Somaj originally
sympathetic - Buddhist and Hindu friends gained for the Society in India - Sumangali,
Damodar Mavalankar and Subba Row, powerful allies - A.P. Sinnett and A.O. Hume influential
friends among the English - The Theosophist founded in 1879 - Olcott's
"Buddhist Catechism" published - this and his lecturing tours gain many
adherents - Missionary hostility aroused at the success and propaganda of the Society -
H.P.B. charged with being a Russian spy and an immoral woman with Col. Olcott for her dupe
- other calumnies - charges recanted by enemies first internal disturbance is the London
Lodge - Dr. George Wyld's defection - Dr. Anna Bonus Kingsford's "Perfect Way" -
her pamphlet assault on Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism" - Mr. Subba Row
replies - Mr. C.C. Massey precipitates further troubles - the "Kiddle charges"
of plagiarism by the Master - the storm raised in England and France in 1884 - H.P.B. and
Col. Olcott go to Paris and London - meet Mr. Solovyoff - Judge comes to Paris, goes to
India, and returns to America via London - H.P.B. and Col. Olcott meet leading members of
the Society for Psychical Research while in London - the S.P.R. plans to investigate the
"Theosophical phenomena."

CHAPTER V. THE S.P.R. AND THE THEOSOPHICAL PHENOMENA... 59

The Society for Psychical Research preceded by the Dialectical Society - that Society
investigates Spiritualism in 1889 - publishes its Report is 1870 - concludes phenomena of
Spiritualism are genuine - transcend all known laws - should be investigated
scientifically - criticisms of the Report by London papers - Professor Crookes
investigates Spiritualism - publishes his results in 1872 - Mr. Crookes assailed as
savagely as Darwin - no advance in understanding of Spiritualistic phenomena during next
ten years - the "Unseen Universe" - the Society for Psychical Research
established in 1882 - its chief sponsors Spiritualists - some of them members of the
Theosophical Society also - many well-known men and women join the S.P.R. - it begins its
investigation of the "Theosophical phenomena" in the summer of 1884 - Olcott,
Sinnett, Chatterji and others examined - H.P.B. interviewed - many other witnesses to the
phenomena of H.P.B. give testimony - Preliminary Report of the S.P.R. issued in the fall
of 1884 - admits the prima facie genuineness of the phenomena - reservations due to
the charges just made in India by the Coulombs against the good faith of H.P.B. - declares
a further investigation necessary in India - appoints Mr. Richard Hodgson for that purpose
- the story of the Coulomb charges of fraud against H.P.B. - H.P.B. ship-wrecked in 1871 -
goes to Cairo - meets Madame Coulomb - is succored by her - starts a society to
investigate Western Spiritualism - the attempt a failure - H.P.B. returns to Russia in
1872 - goes to Paris and then to New York in 1873 - Madame Coulomb marries in Egypt -
meets with reverses - is living in poverty in Ceylon when H.P.B. and Col. Olcott come to
India - the Coulombs appeal for aid - go to India - join the Theosophical Society in 1880
- are given employment at headquarters - Madame Coulomb a bigoted Christian and
Spiritualist medium - becomes jealous of H.P.B.'s successful mission - tries to extort
money from members - circulates slanders about H.P.B. - is brought to "trial" by
the members of the Council during absence of H.P.B. and Olcott in Europe in the summer of
1884 - the Coulombs communicate with Madras missionaries - are expelled from the
Theosophical Society - are supported by the missionaries - the Coulomb charges published
in the Christian College Magazine and in a pamphlet - the outburst occasioned.

CHAPTER VI. THE REPORT OF THE S.P.R. .... 75

Madame Blavatsky resigns from Theosophical Society when Coulomb charges made public -
resignation refused by Olcott under pressure - H.P.B. writes London Times and Pall
Mall Gazette pronouncing charges a conspiracy - H.P.B. and Olcott return to India at
end of 1884 - H.P.B. insists charges most be met by court proceedings against the Coulombs
- Olcott and the Hindus oppose legal action - the Adyar Convention declines to defend
while affirming belief in her bona fides - Olcott and Sinnett already mistrust
H.P.B. - she resigns from the Society and leaves India early in 1885 - Mr. Hodgson in
India during the Convention and desertion of H.P.B. by Theosophists - powerfully affected
by the luke-warmness and doubts of leading Theosophists - returns to England and submits
his report to Committee of S.P.R. - Hodgson's findings adopted by Committee in June, 1885
- Report of the S.P.R. published following December - Conclusions reached - H.P.B.'s
phenomena fraudulent - in a long-continued conspiracy to deceive public - Coulomb letters
and Mahatma letters written by H.P.B. - declare H.P.B. "One of the most accomplished,
ingenious, and interesting impostors in history" - the Report of the S.P.R. examined
critically shows it to be wholly ex parte - no safeguards employed to ascertain and
render justice - the investigation that of a rival society controlled by Spiritualists -
the S.P.R. not interested in philosophy or ethics - avid for phenomena - ignorant of
Occultism - contradictions and inconsistencies of S.P.R. Committee shown from its own
Report - Committee relies wholly on Mr. Massey's suspicions, the Coulomb charges, and the
opinions of the London handwriting experts - Mr. Massey's suspicions shown to be without
tangible foundation - the Coulombs shown out of their own mouths to be lying tricksters -
the handwriting experts shown as first declaring the Mahatma letters could not have been
written by H.P.B. - then, at Hodgson's solicitation, changing their opinion to the
contrary - the expert Netherclift shown to have sworn positively in the Parnell case to
the opposite of the facts - the motives of all adverse witnesses shown to have been
culpable and their testimony impeached - more than one hundred responsible witnesses
affirm the genuineness of phenomena witnessed by them - the S.P.R. Committee declares
these to have been victims of "hallucination" - Hodgson's findings examined - a
mass of suspicions and contradictory conjectures to account for facts testified to -
Hodgson recognizes necessity for showing a motive sufficient to account for H.P.B.'s
alleged fraud during twenty years - rejects supposition that she was influenced by greed
or ambition - submits theory that H.P.B. was a Russian spy - her Society and her phenomena
a cloak to conceal her designs against British rule in India.

Effect on Theosophists of Coulomb - S.P.R. "exposure" - Olcott goes to Burmah
- H.P.B. desperately ill - attempt to unseat Olcott, who returns to Adyar - H.P.B.
supports him - but tells him in deserting her the Theosophists have deserted the Masters -
H.P.B. resigns and leaves India for Europe - Damodar leaves Adyar and goes to the Masters
- the Society in India languishes and falls into public contempt - H.P.B. finds friends
and supporters in Europe - Olcott and Indians find they cannot continue without H.P.B. -
Convention at close of 1885 invites her to resume her office of Corresponding Secretary -
refuses resignation of Olcott who is ready to retire as President - temporary restoration
of harmony among Theosophists - H.P.B. in Europe, first in Italy, then Germany, then
Belgium - her sickness, poverty, courage, good temper and unremitting exertions - visited
by many noted Theosophists - her physical condition desperate for two years - carried to
London by Countess Wachtmeister and the Keightleys in summer of 1887 - her presence a
great stimulus to Theosophy in England - new publications, the Sphynx, the Lotus
and Lucifer - the "Blavatsky Lodge" formed at London - Sinnett
publishes "Incidents in the Life of H.P. Blavatsky" as an offset to S.P.R.
Report - new books - "Light on the Path" - "Five Years of Theosophy" -
"Man: Fragments of Forgotten History" - revival of Theosophical spirit and work
- in Asia - in Europe - in America - Judge the heart of the Movement in America - rebuilds
the Society - Judge begins The Path in 1888 - secures the establishment of the
American "Board of Control" by Olcott - new Branches and Lodges in the United
States - Judge forms the "American Section of the T.S." - first really
democratic organization in the Society - Judge becomes its General Secretary - the work
now in three streams - Judge in America - H.P.B. in Europe - Olcott in India - all in
outward concord.

The "Esoteric Section of the T.S." - the Theosophical Movement has an
esoteric as well as an exoteric aspect - the Theosophical Society mere the public
experimental aspect of the Movement and its Third Section - the First Section the Lodge of
Masters - the Second Section composed of accepted, lay and probationary Chelas or
Disciples - the Masters or First Section never publicly known - the Second Section kept
secret, but probationers accepted privately - Judge and Olcott the earliest members of the
Second Section known - first public notice of the Three Sections in India in 1880 - hints
and articles on Chelaship thereafter appear at intervals in The Theosophist -
difference between Occultism and Spiritualism - Chelaship and mediumship opposed courses -
reasons for secrecy in connection with "Chelaship of the Second Section" - the
immense change in the work of H.P.B. and Judge after 1888 - shown in contents of Lucifer
and The Path - illustrative articles cited - "the ordeals of
Chelaship"-practically exemplified in case of Mrs. Cables and Mr. W.T. Brown - Mrs.
Cables a Spiritualist Christian with mystical tendencies - begins publication of The
Occult Word - W.T. Brown a "probationary Chela" - becomes a
"Rosicrucian" - joins Mrs. Cables - they seek for "communications from the
Mahatmas" - receive no "signs" - publish a "manifesto" - H.P.B.
replies - shows dangers and requirements of Chelaship - cites Brown's own case in
illustration without naming him - Mrs. Cables and Brown leave the Society - failures
frequent among candidates for Chelaship - out of hundreds "one only" achieves
full success - seven years successful probation the minimum requirement before
"communication with Masters" possible on both sides - failure of Theosophists to
lead the life.

CHAPTER IX. H.P.B., OLCOTT AND JUDGE ....... 127

H.P.B. the Messenger of the Masters - Judge next to her in importance esoterically -
Olcott the public head and front of the exoteric work - Olcott's limitations and obstacles
- his own letter quoted - Olcott, the probationary Chela, falls often and upsets his work
as President - his attitude toward H.P.B. and Judge - his friendship and intimacy with
those who afterward became enemies or traitors - Massey, Prof. Coues - Olcott's slights to
H.P.B. - his partiality for Subba Row - friction between Subba Row and H.P.B. over the
"Sevenfold Classification" - the contentions in The Theosophist - Judge
intervenes in the controversy - internal frictions cause of all external troubles -
failure of Theosophists to adhere to First Object and of probationary Chelas to keep their
Pledges - could not endure correction at hands of H.P.B. or Judge - "Pledge
Fever" real cause of stormy course of the Society - necessity for restoration of the
Movement to true lines - Judge advises formation of "Esoteric Section" - draws
up its Rules - Olcott torn by fears and doubts - the battle between the "Three
Founders" prior to the formation of the "Esoteric Section" - not disclosed
till long afterwards in "Old Diary Leaves" - neither H.P.B. nor Judge ever wrote
anything personal - never "washed Theosophical dirty linen in public" - story of
friction between the Founders unknown to Theosophists at the time - disclosed long
afterward by Olcott - "Old Diary Leaves" not a history but an autobiography.

CHAPTER X. THE FORMATION OF THE ESOTERIC SECTION ....... 144

The "critical period" preceding the formation of the "Esoteric
Section" of the T.S. - H.P.B. discussed Olcott's nature in a letter to Dr. Franz
Hartmann in 1886 - Olcott and others never understood either Masters or H.P.B. - Olcott
sincere but "lacks in the psychological portion of his brain" - H.P.B.'s story
of per difficulties - trying to aid others to perception of the facts -Olcott tells his
story at length in "Old Diary Leaves" - thinks H.P.B. wise, foolish and fanatic
- opposes establishment of Lucifer and of "Blavatsky Lodge" - offended at
H.P.B.'s course in the Subba Row controversy - discusses H.P.B.'s nature - calls her
"insulted and misunderstood Messenger" - then says she "frets and worries
over mares' nests" - calls the Judge-Coues controversy a "personal quarrel"
- gives his version of the storm preceding the "Esoteric Section" - calls H.P.B.
a "mad person," "hyper-excited hysterical woman" - discloses that
H.P.B. was prepared to leave the T.S. and form a new Society of her own if he does not
reform - the Hindu "Council" frightened at H.P.B.'s stand - more trouble in the
Paris Branch - Olcott makes it an excuse to go to Europe in 1888 - to "fight it
out" with H.P.B. - first overrules her then rescinds his action - confirms H.P.B.'s
"interference" as within her "Constitutional rights" - Olcott receives
a letter on shipboard in 1888 direct from the Master - wrongly relates it in "Old
Diary Leaves" to the visit in 1884 - the Master's letter a phenomenon indeed - it
reproaches Olcott for his attitude and conduct towards H.P.B. - declares that it is she
who is their direct agent - affirms that "with occult matters she has everything to
do" - warns Olcott to attend to his own business - tells him he will have to suffer
for his injustice to H.P.B. - the letter effective for the time being - Judge goes to
London and the Three Founders effect a reconciliation - H.P.B. issues public notice of the
Esoteric Section, accompanied by an "official authorization" from Olcott - joint
note of H.P.B. and Olcott to all Theosophists - Olcott afterwards takes credit to himself
for the outcome - "pacifies H.P.B."

CHAPTER XI. THE WORK OF THE ESOTERIC SECTION ......... 163

"Old Diary Leaves" tells the story of Olcott's return to India late in 1888
for the "Adyar Parliament" - his Address to Convention - never set himself up as
a competent teacher - the Esoteric Section H.P.B.'s sole responsibility - glosses the
European events to show himself the leading actor - the Convention of the American Section
in April, 1889, following - a letter read from H.P.B. - Judge's respect and reverence for
H.P.B. in contrast with Olcott's attitude - H.P.B.'s letter refers to the Esoteric Section
- formed to work for Theosophy under her direction - gives a warning direct from
Masters - Altruism Their object - Theosophists must strive for true fraternity -
Preliminary Memorandum to candidates for the Esoteric Section - the Pledge required -
secrecy, service and, study - the Esoteric Section necessary because the T.S. had proved
after thirteen years a "dead failure" and a "sham" - the Esoteric
Section not for "practical occultism" - for brotherly union, mutual help, and
the salvation of the T.S. - other extracts from the Preliminary Memorandum and Book of
Rules.

CHAPTER XII. MABEL COLLINS AND PROFESSOR COUES ......... 178

The Esoteric Section promptly brings about Pledge Fever in the T.S. - the great storm
of 1889-90 - Mabel Collins and Prof. Coues the conscious and unconscious instruments -
Mabel Collins joins London Lodge is 1884 - a "psychic" with no knowledge of
Occultism - medium for "Light on the Path" and "The Gates of Gold" -
becomes Associate Editor of Lucifer with H.P.B. - acquires great Theosophical
reputation - suddenly dropped from Lucifer in February, 1889 - Prof. Coues of
Catholic descent and training - highly educated - noted scientific authority and writer -
interested in "psychical research" - joins T.S. at London in 1884 - becomes
member of American Board of Control - establishes the Gnostic Branch of the American
Section T.S., at Washington, D. C. - aids in establishing an American Society for
Psychical Research - tries to control T.S. in United States - Judge's cautions - Coues
corresponds with H.P.B., Judge and Olcott, trying to set them at odds with each other -
Olcott nearly succumbs - letter from Olcott to Coues - Coues made Chairman at American
Section Convention of 1888 at Chiemo - gives the Chicago Tribune a spurious
"Mahatma message" - admits it to Judge - denies it to H.P.B. - his letters to
Judge and H.P.B. - his hypocrisy and thirst for notoriety and power - H.P.B. replies to
him - speaks plainly - refuses to countenance his "messages" or his ambitions -
he demands to be made head of the American Section as the price of his allegiance - his
offer rejected - not present at the Convention of April, 1889.

CHAPTER XIII. THE COUES-COLLINS CHARGES AND THEIR AFTERMATH ......... 195

Coues sends a letter to the Religio-Philosophical Journal of May 11, 1889 -
Bundy, Coleman, Michael Angelo Lane and Mabel Collins enlisted in Coues' campaign to ruin
Judge and H.P.B. - Coues' letter jeers at the "Theosophical mahatmas" - quotes a
letter from Mabel Collins - says he never met Miss Collins personally - wrote her first in
1885 asking real source of "Light on the Path" - she replied that it was
"dictated to her by one of the adepts" of H.P.B. - no intervening communication
- now "unexpectedly" he receives letter which he gives - Miss Collins declares
her original statement false - knows nothing of existence of any Master - made her false
statement because H.P.B. "begged and implored" her to - the Coues-Collins'
charges critically examined - show Coues a conscienceless schemer and Mabel Collins a
mediumistic dupe of Coues - their combined testimony proved false from their own evidence
- collateral and chronological facts show baselessness and impossibility of allegations in
regard to H.P.B. - aftermath of events - Mabel Collins sues H.P.B. for libel - her own
attorneys dismiss the suit on being shown a letter of Mabel Collins in H.P.B.'s possession
- the real mysteries involved in the origin of Collins' "inspired" books - Mabel
Collins a "failure in occultism" - dismissed, with M.A. Lane, from the Esoteric
Section - Coues never a member of the Section - admission refused him.

CHAPTER XIV. THE NEW YORK SUN LIBEL CASE ......... 211

Professor Coues' case taken up by Judge - the Executive Committee of the American
Section expels Coues from the T.S. - the Convention in April, 1890, approves the expulsion
- the Gnostic Branch dischartered - Coues plans revenge - the New York Sun joins in
the fray - calls H.P.B. an "impostor," lauds Coues for exposing her "humbug
religion" - followed by full page interview with Coues - he rehashes all the old
slanders on H.P.B. - charges Judge with duplicating in America H.P.B.'s frauds in England
- the "mahatmas" a hoax and their "messages" invented by H.P.B. and
Judge - charges H.P.B. with immorality - Judge brings suit for libel against Sun -
H.P.B. follows - her letter in The Path - no evasion of the issues - the Sun fights
the case for two years - no evidence obtainable to support the charges made - the Sun publishes
in 1892 a full retraction and repudiates Coues - retraction accompanied by publication in Sun
of a long article by Judge in defense of H.P.B. - Sun says editorially
"Mr. Judge's article disposes of all questions regarding Madame Blavatsky as resented
by Dr. Coues" - the Sun libel case a complete vindication of H.P.B. - infamy
of subsequent reiteration of exploded slanders by Count Witte and Margot Tennant - Coues
disgraced by outcome of suits - retires to obscurity - importance of the Coues-Collins-Sun
battle - should be familiar to all students.

CHAPTER XV. OLCOTT VERSUS H.P.B. ........ 226

Esoteric aspect of the Coues struggle - cycles in Theosophical Movement - the Three
Founders the personification of the Three

Sections of the Movement - a breach between the Sections in the first ten years -
Olcott and others' failure to defend H.P.B. in 1885 the sign of the rupture - first doubts
- then dissent and dissimulation - then temporising - then repudiation of the Occult
status of H.P.B. - the long list of "failures in occultism" in the first
thirteen years - Coues counted on Olcott's support - Olcott becomes frightened at possible
consequences to Society and himself - refuses to align himself with his colleagues but
does not openly support Coues - blinded by jealousy and vanity - "Old Diary
Leaves" discloses Olcott's inner attitude and struggles - his "pitched
battle" with H.P.B. in 1888 over the Esoteric Section - due to his inner doubts and
fears - thought H.P.B. and Judge were engaged in "the building up of a new structure
of falsehood, fraud and treachery in which to house new idol" - takes Richard Harte
back to India with him - Olcott's comments in "Old Diary Leaves" on the events
from 1888 to 1890 - obsessed with the importance of the Society - of himself as its
President-Founder - changes in the Constitution and articles in The Theosophist -
engineered by Olcott to make himself supreme - tries to relegate H.P.B. and Judge to
"their proper place" - "Revised Rules" adopted by the "Adyar
Parliament - Judge and H.P.B. oppose - supported by the American and British Sections.

1888-1890 - the long campaign waged by Olcott and his lieutenant Richard Harte -
coincident with the Cones' assaults - the uproar in the Society - H.P.B. and Judge the
target for attacks within and without the Society - The Theosophist wages war on
the independence of the Sections - belittles the Esoteric Section - threatens the
dissolution of the American and British Sections - lauds "Adyar" as "the
centre of the Movement" - long series of derogatory articles - The Theosophist
the sole source of information in India - attempts of H.P.B. and Judge publicly and
privately to restore harmony - Bertram Keightly's foolish letter to Harte - Judge writes
direct to Olcott - re-affirms the issues at stake - declares H.P.B. the heart of the
Society as well as the Movement - Olcott refuses to publish Judge's letter - gives
extracts and defends Harte - declares himself the head and front of the Society and the
cause - H.P.B. takes action - her article in Lucifer, August, 1889 - "A Puzzle
from Adyar" - she reprints some of Harte's fulminations - "Pure nonsense to say
that she is 'loyal to the Theosophical Society and to Adyar'" - "loyal to death
to the Theosophical Cause" - "There is no longer a 'Parent Society'"
- "It is abolished and replaced by an aggregate body of Theosophical Societies, all
autonomous" - will leave the Society at the first sign of disloyalty to the Cause
- and will lead those who remain true.

Esoterically, the great storm of 1888-90 due to the clash between human and divine
nature - the Objects of the Movement practical, not theoretical - the gulf between the
views of Olcott and his party and those personified by H.P.B. and Judge - Olcott once more
sobered by "A Puzzle from Adyar" - realizes he has gone too far - fears for his
beloved Society - determines to go once more to England - realizes that to rise in
rebellion means to ally himself with Coues - arrives in England late in 1889 - met as
always by H.P.B. with affection and charity - heart warmed by the treatment accorded him -
his fears allayed for the moment - makes a tour of the British Isles - issues an
"Order" delegating his Presidential powers for Europe to H.P.B. and an
"Advisory Council" - "Bombay Conference" adopts stirring resolutions
in support of H.P.B. during Olcott's absence - fresh Paris troubles after Olcott's return
to India - he once more interferes and issues Presidential ukases - the British and
Continental Theosophists rise up in arms - Mrs. Annie Besant joins the Society - becomes
associate editor of Lucifer and President of the "Blavatsky Lodge" - she
heads the insurrectron against Olcott's papal actions - unanimous demand that H.P.B. take
direction of affairs in Europe - H.P.B. bows to the will of the European Theosophists -
issues a Notice in Lucifer assuming full authority and responsibility for Society
in Europe - names it "The Theosophical Society in Europe" and declares for
democracy August,1890 - cables Olcott of her action - Olcott saves his face by accepting
the facts and repudiating the factors.

CHAPTER XVIII. DEATH OF H.P.B. - HER LAST MESSAGES ........... 275

H.P.B. dies May 8, 1891 - Her life an open book to friend and foe - remains today as
much a mystery as then - Theosophists never studied her life in the light of her teachings
regarded personally even by her most devoted followers - judged at second hand on hearsay
and opinion by the world and by Theosophists - weighed by trifles - her teachings and her
works the true evidence of her Mission and her nature - no fact adduced by her ever
overthrown by counter-evidence - her theories as unimpeachable as ever - her life and her
message absolutely consistent - her followers and detractors weighed in same scale make a
sorry showing - her Messages to the American Theosophists prove her sage and prophet - her
"dying declaration" - "My Books" - "Isis Unveiled" a
Message from the Masters - every word of her teachings from the Masters of the Wisdom
- no charge against her ever substantiated - her inexhaustible philanthropy - the price
she paid to serve mankind.

CHAPTER XIX. THE CRISIS IN THE SOCIETY .......... 393

The great crisis following the death of H.P.B. - in the exoteric Society - in the
Esoteric Section or School - how the crisis was met - Judge goes to London - summons a
meeting of the "Council of the Esoteric Section" - the Council meets May 27,
1891 - considers documents left by H.P.B. - affirms Judge H.P.B.'s representative -
H.P.B.'s last words "Keep the Link unbroken" - Council goes on record Esoteric
School should be continued on lines laid by H.P.B. - Judge and Annie Besant to conduct the
School - Council issues confidential circular to all members of the E.S.T., signed by all
- Council resigns - address of Mrs. Besant and Judge as Outer Heads to the School - claim
no authority over the members save such as delegated by H.P.B.

Position of the Esoteric Society following H.P.B.'a death - Olcott comes to London to
attend Convention of British-European Section - great gathering of leading Theosophists -
London Lodge not represented at Convention but sends letter - London Lodge declares its
independence - action tacitly accepted by Convention - speeches of Col. Olcott - Mrs.
Besant - Mr. Judge - entire harmony and concord - Lucifer memorial articles - the
workers scatter - Mrs. Besant takes charge of Lucifer - her great work publicly -
Judge returns to America - Olcott to India - his "triumphal procession" - Mrs.
Besant's proclamation of the nature and status of H.P.B, in Lucifer, 1890-91 - her
famous speech in St. James' Hall, August 30, 1891 - "A Fragment of
Autobiography" - declares she has received messages from the Mahatmas since the death
of H.P.B. - the furore aroused - Olcott "views with alarm" the declarations made
- his Address to the "Adyar Parliament" December, 1891 - H.P.B. "not as
perfect a channel as some others" - protests "against all attempts to create an
H.P.B. school sect or cult" - Judge sounds the true note for all Theosophists -
"first Solidarity, and second, Theosophical education" - "Jasper
Niemand" publishes a message from the Masters in The Path, August, 1891 -
Olcott stirred up - writes Judge - Judge publishes article on 'Dogmatism in Theosophy' -
Society founded to destroy dogmatism - quotes H.P.B. - real object Universal Brotherhood -
not dogmatism to study, teach and apply Theosophy - members have equal rights to affirm or
reject any doctrines - but no right to impose their private views on others - or
promulgate them as official tenets of the T.S.

The old issues once more aroused - The Theosophical Movement one thing - the
Theosophical Society quite another - the criteria applicable to Theosophical history -
Altruism the self-professed Object of the Fellows of the T.S. - Altruism and Theosophy the
self-pledged objectives of the members of the E.S.T. - Fellows of the T.S. must be weighed
in the scales of their own conduct, not that of others - members of the Esoteric Section
by their allegiance to their voluntary Pledges, not by worldly standards - the war of
ideas within a year after H.P.B.'s death - official report of the Adyar Convention of 1891
- Olcott's Presidential Address - great importance of Olcott's declarations - Judge meets
the issue - publishes article on "The Future and the Theosophical Society" -
quotes a letter of H.P.B.'s - her vision of the coming strife - "a few earnest
Theosophists" - "in a death struggle with nominal and ambitious
Theosophists" - the dangers now the same as always - the Society not a "School
for Occultism" - must flourish on its moral worth not on phenomena - members must be
"true to themselves" - Judge corrects Olcott's Presidential remarks on H.P.B. -
Judge declares H.P.B. knew she was going - decries attempts to create bogies - a
thunderbolt in the Society - Olcott resigns the Presidency - Judge publishes official
correspondence and takes charge as Vice-President, March, 1892 - secret of Olcott's sudden
resignation a mystery to this day - the hidden facts disclosed - Olcott indiscreet at
London in summer of 1891 - charges of "grave immorality" made by Miss Muller -
Mrs. Besant excited by the charges - comes to New York to see Judge - demands Judge force
Olcott's resignation - Judge writes Olcott - suggests he resign if charges are true -
Olcott denies charges but tenders resignation - Olcott's fatal blunder - proud and
sensitive - cannot endure contumely and calumny - Judge writes him loyally.

Convention of American Section held in April, 1892, immediately following Olcott's
resignation - great growth of the Section - letters from Olcott read - Judge reviews the
year since H.P.B.'s death - pays tribute to Annie Besant - convention resolutions in
regard to Olcott - Olcott requested to withdraw his resignation - request cabled to Olcott
- Olcott replies must wait to hear from

all the Sections - Convention re-elects Judge General Secretary - votes for Judge for
President in case Olcott adheres to his resignation - American Convention's recommendation
to British Convention for July, 1892 - advises same action in regard to Olcott's
resignation as its own - Mrs. Besant gets out private circular urging Judge for President
- Olcott writes to British Convention - intimates willingness to withdraw resignation -
Convention nevertheless votes for Judge and to accept resignation - Olcott in a quandary -
encouraged by Judge - Judge sends him message from Masters - Olcott decides to withdraw
resignation and remain President - Judge publishes Olcott's notice and informs American
Branches.

Adyar Parliament at end of 1892 - Olcott's Presidential address - explains his
resignation as due to ill-health - ready now to continue to the end as a "sacrifice
demanded by the best interests of the Society" - names Judge as his successor -
adverts once more to "Adyar" as the centre of the Movement - admit Adyar
Convention merely an informal gathering - "only 5 Branches out of 145 really doing
satisfactory work" in the Indian Section - Indian Branches mainly exist on paper -
First Object makes no appeal to Indian membership - trouble in the E.S.T. - due to Mrs.
Besant's private circular preceding Convention of British Section - Judge issues notice in
the E.S.T. - the School has no connection officially with the T.S. - members free to act
according to their own judgment - Mrs. Besant's private circular stirs up Olcott's friends
- her action ascribed to Judge's influence - Mrs. Besant issues circular to the Esoteric
School explaining her action - Judge's effort to shield Mrs. Besant - and restore harmony
in the Society and the E.S.T. - why the circular was jointly signed - members too prone to
follow authorities - would not "cultivate self-reliance and develop the
intuition" - the bane of "successorship" - H.P.B. declared in
"Isis" that "apostolic succession is a gross and palpable fraud" - the
"successorship" idea among Theosophist after H.P.B.'s death - Duchesse de Pomar
hailed as H.P.B.'s "successor" - then Annie Besant in England and Judge in
America - Judge tells the reporters "H.P.B. was sui generis" - "she
can have no successor" - claims of mediums and "Occultists" to be H.P.B.'s
"successor" - the case of Henry B. Foulke - Judge's two letters on the subject
to the Wilkes-Barre Times - Mrs. Besant reprints Judge's letters in Lucifer -
Olcott declares himself on "successorship" claims - "Blavatsky nascitur,
non fit" - Olcott begins the publication of "Old Diary Leaves" in The
Theosophist for March, 1892 - their effect on the Society and the Movement - "Old
Diary Leaves" ostensible purpose to give a "true history of the Theosophical
Society" - the actual motive to pull down H.P.B. to the common level - the real
animus not disclosed till 1895 - contradictory views of H.P.B. held by Olcott and others -
the "real H.P.B." unknown to Olcott - some hints for the intuitional-minded on
"our Brother, H.P.B."

CHAPTER XXIV. CONTROVERSY OVER H.P.B.'s STATUS AS AGENT OF THE MASTERS ......... 380

Constant belittlement of H.P.B. publicly and privately - emanates from Olcott and
Sinnett - could not endure her pre-eminence - Judge's difficult situation - bound to
defend H.P.B. - realizes must antagonize prominent leaders - steps taken in the E.S.T. -
"We have not been deserted" - "Authorship of the 'Secret Doctrine'" -
other articles in The Path - the old controversy between Mr. Sinnett and H.P.B. -
"The earth chain of globes" - London Lodge lectures - W. Scot Elliott claims
"inspiration" - Alexander Fullerton's faux pas - Judge disclaims
responsibility for Fullerton - corrects misconceptions in The Path - Judge quotes
Masters' certificates on the "Secret Doctrine" - letter from Masters to
Francesca Arundale - shows conditions in London Lodge as far back as 1884 - Miss
Arundale's letter unknown to members at time - the controversy becomes violent - Judge
writes on "Masters, Adepts, Teachers and Disciples" - Sinnett comes out in the
open - declares H.P.B. "under other influences" than Masters - affirms he is
still is communication with Mahatmas - Judge and Mrs. Besant try to quiet the storm while
upholding H.P.B. - Olcott speaks in praise of Sinnett - the situation by the early fall of
1893 - a sharp and sheer cleavage over teachings - and over status of H.P.B. as agent of
the Masters.

CHAPTER XXV. ANNIE BESANT IN AMERICA, 1892-3 ......... 405

Mrs. Besant invited to visit India again in fall of 1892 - goes to America instead -
her American tour a great success - returns to England loud in praise of Mr. Judge -
Olcott writes the American Convention in April, 1893 - raises the "hero worship"
bogy once more - Judge speaks as General Secretary American Section - disclaims all hero
worship and dogmatism - but insists those who reverence H.P.B. have perfect right to
express their views - warns against official promulgations on matters of individual
opinion - Mrs. Besant upholds members' rights to freedom of individual belief and
expression - W. Scott Elliott's claims to "inspiration" discussed -
"authority" in the T.S. - no doctrines "authoritative" - all must
stand on their own merit - Mrs. Besant quotes H.P.B. on freedom of opinion in the T.S. -
E.T. Sturdy takes a hand - Sturdy a member of the E.S.T. - objects to claims of
"messages from Masters" - Mrs. Besant writes on "Gurus and Chelas" -
opposes Sturdy's views - the whole subject of "Mahatma messages" once more to
the fore - claims of "Jasper Niemand" in The Path article - claims of
Mrs. Besant to recent "messages" from Masters - Mrs. Besant now the foremost
figure in the Society - Olcott and Sinnett worried over Mrs. Besant's championship of
Judge and H.P.B.

CHAPTER XXVI. BEGINNINGS OF THE "JUDGE CASE" ......... 425

Mrs. Besant publishes in Lucifer for April, 1893, Judge's letter to Olcott in
1891 about the "Jasper Niemand" message - Sturdy's article really a reply to
Judge's letter to Olcott - Olcott joins in the fray - "N.D.K." writes in The
Theosophist - challenges Judge's statements in the letter to Olcott - Olcott reprints
Sturdy's article including paragraphs omitted by Mrs. Besant - Walter R. Old and S.V. Edge
- Old a member of the "E.S.T. Council" - Edge assistant on The Theosophist
- they write in The Theosophist on "Theosophic Freethought" - the article
a veiled attack on Judge - they tell of the "Mahatma Message" at the
"E.S.T. Council" meeting of May 27, 1891 - they question the bona fides
of Judge and the genuineness of the "message" - Old and Edge undoubtedly
inspired by Olcott - the question of "Master's seal" - the whole subject of
"messages from Masters" discussed - H.P.B.'s statement - "Occult phenomena
can never be proved" - The publication of "Theosophic Freethought" - a
violation of the E.S.T. pledges of Old and Edge - taken up by Mrs. Besant in the Esoteric
Section - Old and Edge suspended from membership in the E.S.T. in August 1893 - the
circular issued to members of the E.S.T. by Mrs. Besant and Judge - Olcott follows up the
attack on Judge and H.P.B. - the White Lotus Day meeting at Adyar May 8, 1893 - the
quandary of Olcott and his allies - can Judge be unseated in confidence of members? -
H.P.B. cannot be "buried" while Judge lives - Judge invincible with Mrs.
Besant's support - the problem to win over Mrs. Besant against Judge and H.P.B. -
beginnings of the conspiracy against Judge.

CHAPTER XXVII. MRS. BESANT CHANGES SIDES ............. 441

Judge and Olcott personify the opposing issues - the First and Second Sections versus
the Third Section - esoteric aspects of the Movement versus the exoteric - "The Judge
Case" - the external phase of the battle - the momentous year of 1893 - Bertram
Keightley the unconscious agent in the subornation of Mrs. Besant - Keightley originally a
staunch supporter of H.P.B. - gets in trouble with Mabel Collins - sent by H.P.B. to
America in 1890 - poses as her "representative" - H.P.B. issues famous Notice of
August 9, 1890 - disavows Bertram Keightley's "teachings" - says Judge her
"sole representative" - recalls Keightley to Europe - sends him to India - he
becomes General Secretary Indian Section - becomes an adherent of Olcott's - falls under
influence of G.N. Chakravarti - Chakravarti a "psychic" - poses as a
"Chela" - Keightley comes to America in spring of 1893 - attends American
Section Convention - invited by Judge to select Brahmin and Buddhist Delegates to World's
Parliament of Religions at Chicago Fair - Chakravarti chosen - Judge's efforts to allay
Brahminical hostility to the T.S. - he warns of "A plot against the Theosophical
Society" - Keightley a close friend of Mrs. Besant - he goes to England from America
- works on Mrs. Besant - she begins to grow suspicious of Judge - Chakravarti comes to
London - Mrs. Besant becomes one of his worshipers - adopts "ascetic" practices
- her intimacy with Chakravarti - Mrs. Besant, Miss Muller, and Chakravarti come to
America to attend the "Parliament of Religions" - the great success of the
Parliament - Mrs. Besant and Chakravarti share honors as the great feature of the
"Parliament" - Mrs. Besant succumbs to the lures held out - goes to India in the
fall of 1893 - her visit there a regal triumph - how Olcott set the stage - his
contemptuous review of Judge's Ocean of Theosophy - prepares the "Adyar
Convention," Christmas, 1893 - his Presidential Address - laudatious of Mrs. Besant -
sees in Mrs. Besant a messiah from the Masters - the epiphany of Mrs. Besant - intimates a
coming storm - understood to refer to Judge - the secret meeting behind the public address
- the Christmas night conclave at Adyar in 1893 - Mrs. Besant, Col. Olcott, Walter R. Old,
and others plan the assault on Judge - the meeting unknown to the members - Mrs. Besant
chosen to hurl the thunderbolt prepared - she writes a formal letter to Olcott Feb. 6,
1894 - makes charges against Judge - demands investigation - next day Olcott writes
officially to Judge - demands he resign or stand trial for "misusing Mahatmas' names
and handwritings."

The real issue Theosophy or the Society - Chelas or mediums - Brotherhood or
sectarianism - how Judge acted on receipt of Olcott's "ultimatum" - addresses a
circular March 15, 1894, to all members of the T.S. - lays bare, the facts - refuses to
resign - announces his readiness to meet any charges - denies any wrong-doing - admits
receiving and delivering messages from Masters - declares them genuine - never courted
publicity - says no one but a genuine chela can determine what is or is not a
"message" - the charges a distinct violation of Constitution of Society - make a
dogma out of Masters and Messages - an assault on liberty of conscience - will meet his
accusers - Judge's circular widely distributed - its frankness and fairness in meeting all
issues - Bertram Keightley and George Mead receive copies of charges and Judge's reply -
their sense of honor and fair play outraged - they address an open letter to Col. Olcott
as General Secretaries of Indian and British Sections - charge Olcott with violation of
Constitution and the principles of Brotherhood - declare the matter at issue one of
personal opinion and barred from constitutional attack - Olcott follows up his first
letter to Judge with another - invites Judge to "prove himself innocent" and
suspends him from Vice-Presidency - sets the "trial" to be held at London in
July, 1894 - Mrs. Besant leaves India to return to England and carry the fight against
Judge before the British Section Convention - the American Section Convention meets in
April, 1894 - unanimously votes confidence in Judge - re-elects him General Secretary -
charges Olcott with violation of the Constitution - demands that if Judge's
"messages" are investigated those of Sinnett, Mrs. Besant, Col. Olcott and
others be also investigated at the same time - declares for freedom of opinion and belief
in the Society - votes to reimburse Judge for the expenses he has been put to because of
the charges against him.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE "JUDICIAL ENQUIRY" IN LONDON ........... 493

Olcott's position in spring of 1894 - determined to "fight it out to the
hilt" this time - feels master of the situation due to alliance with Mrs. Besant -
his other aids - Walter Old's help - Old determines to return to England with Mrs. Besant
- Old an astrologer and "psychic" with many English friends - Olcott's
panegyrics on Mrs. Besant - his signed article in The Theosophist on Mrs. Besant -
his attitude toward Judge contrasted with his deification of Mrs. Besant - makes Mrs.
Besant his viceregal agent - grants her carte blanche in Australasia - the
significance of this - Olcott and Mrs. Besant natural autocrats - no idea of democracy -
the bombshell of Keightley and Mead's rebellion - this situation reversed - Olcott now
fearful of defeat - consults his advisers - sends out a new Official Notice - tries to
explain situation - announces his decision to go to England - his "explanation"
examined - the battlefield transferred to England - The "Judicial Committee"
meets at London in July, 1894 - Mrs. Besant, Olcott and others confer - the case thrashed
out in Committee - Judge attends the session of the Committee - remains silent - Committee
in hard case - points raised by Judge inescapable - Judge announces his readiness to be
"tried" - the Committee controlled by Besant and Olcott - they fear Judge can
"prove his innocence" if tried - they reverse themselves - Olcott makes a speech
- declares case cannot constitutionally be tried - the Committee decides it has "no
jurisdiction" - the action taken a complete exposure of the animus of the persecution
- the "Enquiry" a farce.

Effect of the decision of the "Judicial Committee" - Theosophists at London
for the British Convention sense the wrong done Judge - Mrs. Besant and Olcott try to
"save their face" - they demand a "Jury of honour" - Judge's reply -
where are the competent "occultists"? - who can tell whether a
"Message" is or is not genuine? - Mrs. Besant proposes the matter be placed
before the British Convention as a "Jury" - Judge promptly consents - Mrs.
Besant and Judge read Statements to the Convention - Mrs. Besant admits the charges due to
"personal hatred" of Judge by "certain persons" - Old and Edge
indicated as the "guilty persons" - Mrs Besant denies responsibility - says she
sponsored charges for "Judge's sake" - admits Judge is in communication with
Masters - says the "messages" in the "Master's script" - but says she
believes Masters did not "directly" precipitate them - acquits Judge of
dishonorable intentions - apologizes for her share in the case - asks Judge's forgiveness
"for wrongs done him" - Olcott adds a footnote to Mrs. Besant's Statement - says
he asked her to make the charges - betrays himself - Judge makes his Statement - says he
did not couple Mrs. Besant's name with the charges to save her - denies "forging the
handwriting of Mahatmas" - admits having delivered Messages - affirms their
genuineness - refuses to say how they were done - denies right of anyone to make
unverifiable charges - says anyone can receive Messages who "lives the life" -
never tried to influence others - says handwriting, seals and "precipitation"
not a "proof" that Messages are from Masters - forgives his enemies - Mrs.
Besant's and Mr. Judge's Statements analyzed and compared - the British Convention
unanimously accepts the Statements made and declares the "Judge case" a
"closed incident" - the "Occultism and Truth" circular distributed
after adjournment of the Convention - Mrs. Besant's Lucifer article on the
"Judicial Enquiry" - her evasions and misrepresentations - the signers of the
"Occultism and Truth" circular - show who were behind the persecution of Judge -
what "possessed" his defamers - were Mrs. Besant, Olcott and the rest deliberate
malicious assassins of reputation of Judge? - they were "occult failures" -
could not discriminate between truth and falsehood - moved by the same self-righteous
relentlessness as religious bigots in all times - Olcott's Parthian shot after the
Convention - his article on "T.S. Solidarity and Ideals."

The calm after the storm of the "Judicial Committee" in July, 1894 - the
lesson of the "Enquiry" - "occult phenomena cannot be proved" - no
part of the business of the Theosophical Society - phenomena no evidence of morality or
ethics - can be performed by mediums and "black magicians" as well as Chelas and
Adepts - H.P.B. 's mission philosophical and ethical - not to supply a demonstration of
the Occult Science - her phenomena incidental and unavoidable to her Mission - phenomena
never made public by either H.P.B. or Judge in first instance - the "Judge case"
a testing out of the "Esoteric Section" - further extracts from the Preliminary
Memorandum - rules and purpose of the E.S.T. - conduct of Olcott, Besant, et. al.,
gross violation of their own Pledges in Occultism - clear evidence of their total failure
as "probationary Chelas" - the warnings given to Mrs. Besant in the school -
aftermath of the "Judicial Enquiry" - how the matter was settled for the time in
the E.S.T. - the joint circular of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Judge to the Members, August, 1894
- its history and re-organization recited - the agreement reached - Mrs. Besant to conduct
the "Eastern Division" and Mr. Judge the "Western Division" -
"time must be allowed" for the restoration of tranquillity - Mr. Judge the real
Agent of H.P.B. in the School - Mrs. Besant "Recorder of the teachings" - her
failure as "Recorder" - her corruption of the "Secret Doctrine" - her
spurious Third Volume - her boldness in publishing misrepresentations of fact and
philosophy - she puts an utter falsehood in the mouth of H.P.B. - declares H.P.B.
"Professed faith in the gods" - Mrs. Besant's loss of ethical balance whenever
her statements questioned or her actions impugned.

The situation in the early fail of 1894 - Judge returns to America - Olcott and
Keightley return to India - Mrs. Besant goes to Australia - Walter Old remains in England
- renews the fight on Judge - evidences of collusion - Old provides Edmund Garrett with
ammunition - Garrett opens a grand assault in the Westminster Gazette - ridicules
Theosophy - pokes fun at Olcott and Mrs. Besant - calls them dupes of H.P.B. and Judge -
Garrett as honest man - avows his animus - declares himself enemy of Theosophy - his
purpose to destroy T.S. - his series of articles published in book form - their tremendous
circulation and effect - Old writes the Gazette - admits his complicity - regrets
to drag in Mrs. Besant and Olcott - exposes his enmity to Judge - confesses unwittingly
the secret conference at Adyar, Christmas, 1893 - the "Judge case" planned then
by Old, Besant, Olcott and others - decries H.P.B. as well as Judge - the enemies of Judge
moved by "pride and wounded vanity" - the steps taken by Judge after the Westminster
Gazette attack - his letter to the New York Sun and the Gazette - his
famous E.S.T. Circular of November 3, 1894 - "By Master's Order" he tells the
E.S.T. members the whole story - "black magic" versus "white magic" -
Mrs. Besant the unconscious tool and victim of Chakravarti - the real issue between the
Brahminism of the Orient and the Theosophy of H.P.B. - the Society will stand or fall by
H.P.B. - deposes Mrs. Besant from her Co-Headship in the E.S.T. - Judge informs Mrs.
Besant in Australia by cable of his action - Mrs. Besant's circular from Colombo, December
18, 1894, in reply to Judge's - defies Judge - misrepresents the facts of the Meeting of
May 27, 1891 - declares herself "H.P.B.'s successor" - Mrs. Besant's circular
analyzed - its falsity shown.

The war on Judge breaks out more fiercely than ever - Mrs. Besant proceeds to India -
publishes long article in Madras Mail - sends violent attack on Judge to the London
Daily Chronicle - attends the Adyar Convention at end of December, 1894 - Olcott's
Presidential Address - calls Judge a medium - Mrs. Besant introduces Resolutions against
Judge - demands that Judge resign - her bitter speech - the whole proceedings plainly
planned in advance - the long list of denunciatory speeches - Muller's infamous remarks -
not a voice raised in defense of Judge - not a demand for fair dealing - Mrs. Besant's
Resolutions unanimously adopted - next day's Indian Convention - more denunciation of
Judge - Resolutions adopted demanding an "explanation" from Judge or his
expulsion from the Society - coincident steps in England - George Mead first deprecates
Old's and the Westminster Gazette articles - then hears from Mrs. Besant - then
begins the "Clash of Opinion" in Lucifer - publishes letters from Old and
others assailing Judge - prints Mrs. Besant's Indian attacks on Judge - Bertram Keightley
follows suit - Alexander Fullerton like Mead in between two fires - first for Judge and
then against - Mrs. Besant's former triumphal tour of India repeated - she returns to
England in April, 1894 - issues her pamphlet "The Case Against W.Q. Judge" -
demands his expulsion from the T.S.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE AMERICAN SECTION DECLARES ITS AUTONOMY AND ELECTS JUDGE ITS
LIFE-PRESIDENT ............. 622

Proceedings in America - Judge writes the Westminster Gazette and New York Sun
- deals with situation fully and frankly - publishes "The Prayag Letter" in The
Path for March, 1895 - declares it a genuine "message from the Masters" -
the history of the "Prayag Message" - originally sent in 1881 - from Masters to
Brahmins - sent through H.P.B. - Judge throws down the gauntlet to his adversaries - says
whole "case" against him due to his defense of H.P.B. - makes public that
Olcott, Mrs. Besant, Sinnett and others have been making privately same charges against
H.P.B - invites Col. Olcott and Mrs. Besant to make public statement regarding "The
Prayag Letter" - The "Message" is full - Mrs. Besant replies in Lucifer -
"I do not regard the message as genuine" - Olcott comes out in the open - his
"Postscript" in the Supplement to The Theosophist for April, 1895
- "the message a false one" - "the simple theory of mediumship"
accounts for H.P.B. - Sinnett says "I never in my life called Mme. Blavatsky a
fraud" - the proof positive out of Sinnett's own mouth that be did just that - the
original of the "Prayag message" in the handwriting of H.P.B. - the original was
in Sinnett's hands all the time - published since his death in The Mahatma Letters to
A.P. Sinnett - both Judge and H.P.B. vindicated completely the text of the Mahatma
Letters - the American Convention of April, 1895 - The Convention adopts Resolutions
to withdraw officially from the T.S. and become The Theosophical Society in America
- adopts a Constitution - elects Judge President for life - draws up a Letter to the
forthcoming British Convention - text of the Letter - the British Convention meets July 4,
1895 - tables the Letter from the American Theosophists - split in the British Convention
- Olcott issues another Executive Notice - admits legality of the action of the American
Convention - cancels all diplomas and charter of Americans - refuses all official
intercourse - expresses good-will - Judge's "Reply" to Mrs. Besant's "Case
against W.Q. Judge" - the "Cases" analysed - never any evidence against
Judge - the whole "Case" rests on suspicions and "psychic
revelations."

CHAPTER XXXV. JUDGE'S DEATH AND THE TINGLEY "SUCCESSORSHIP" .......... 653

After the split in 1895 - Mrs. Besant alters the "Pledge" - puts her own and
Leadbeater's writings on a par with H.P.B.'s - Judge holds true to the line - but sickens
and dies March 21, 1896 - The Tingley "Successorship" myth - E.T. Hargrove and
others hold a "General E.S.T. Meeting," March 29, 1896 - they announce to the
members that "Judge left an occult heir" - the circular of April 3, 1898 - the
statements of the "Council" and the "Minutes" of the meeting of March
29 - the identity of the "Successor" to be kept secret for one year - the whole
claim rests on "messages" from the dead W.Q. Judge - not a scrap is the physical
handwriting of the living W.Q. Judge produced then or since - the real explanation - the
secret meeting at Mrs. Tingley's home on March 26, 1898 - the American Theosophists accept
the Tingley "Successorship" - the Convention of 1896 - Mrs. Tingley disclosed as
the "Successor" - the "Crusade - frictions begin - Hargrove resigns -
another secret meeting at Mrs. Tingley's home - the "Universal Brotherhood"
planned - the Convention of February, 1898 - Hargrove and his friends "bolt" the
Convention - the war of recriminations - the members follow Mrs. Tingley - Hargrove's
"E.S.T." circular - the degradation of both wings of the old Society - offshoots
from Tingleyism - Hargrove's "T.S. in A." - the "Temple of the People"
- the "T.S. of New York" - Dr. Buck and "The T.K." - Mrs. Alice L.
Cleather and her "pupil" - the "Blavatsky Association" - the
Besant-Olcott fragment - Leadbeater the "power behind the throne" of Mrs. Besant
- Leadbeater admits infamous teachings to boys - resigns from the T.S. - Olcott dies -
Mrs. Besant claims "Successorship" to President-Founder - More charges and
counter-charges - Leadbeater invited back to the T.S. - the "Coming Christ" -
the "Liberal Catholic Church" - complete reversion of the T.S. - its offshoots -
Dr. Rudolph Steiner and the "Anthroposophical Society" - Max Heindel and his
"Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception" - other "Occult" societies.

Has the Theosophical Movement been a failure? - Cyclic Law - Centenary efforts since
fourteenth century - H.P.B.'s mission the fifth - Mediumship and psychism inevitable
concomitants of the public Movement - the Movement has not failed - spread of Theosophical
ideas - they permeate religion, philosophy, and science today - the signs and evidences -
the real aim of H.P.B. achieved - the Masters never fail - what of the future of the
Theosophical Movement? - 1925 its nadir point - the first and Seconds Sections still
active as always - signs of their work - Nirmanakayas - true Disciples known by their
fruits - Edmond Holmes - "The Creed of Buddha" - the Angarika Dharmapala
- B.P. Wadia - Julia H. Scott - Robert Crosbie - the United Lodge of Theosophists - the
magazine Theosophy - the "changing Buddhi-Manas of the race" - due to
incarnation of the pioneers of the "Sixth Sub-Race" - the destiny of the
Movement until 1975.

In its larger aspect the Theosophical Movement is the path of progress, individually
and collectively. Wherever thought has struggled to be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as
opposed to forms and dogmatism, have been promulgated, there the great Movement is to be
discerned. Organized religions, systems of thought, governments, parties, sects - all have
their origins in efforts for the better co-operation of men, for conserving energy and
putting it to use. They all in time become corrupted and must change, as the times change,
as human defects come out, and as the great underlying Spiritual and Intellectual
evolution compels such alterations.

Luther's Reformation must be counted as a part of the Theosophical Movement. Masonry
has played a great and important part in it, and still does to some extent, for however
restricted in application, however its great symbolism may have been forgotten or
obscured, Masonry none the less stands for tolerance, for religious and intellectual
liberty, for charity. The formation of the American Republic with its noble Declaration of
Independence, its equality of all men before the law, its ideals of brotherhood and
freedom from sectarian religious partialities must be accounted a great forward step in
the Theosophical Movement. And with the abolition of human slavery in all the great
Western nations during the course of the nineteenth century, another great step in the
emancipation of the race must be acclaimed. The "divine right" of an orthodox
God speaking through

--- 2

a vested clergy was rebelled against in every voice raised against the Catholic
hierarchy. The "divine right" of kings was overthrown by the American and French
Revolutions. The "divine right" of one man or set of men to enslave another or
others was the real issue involved in the American Civil War, and the emancipation of the
serfs in Russia. Nationalism, socialism, universal suffrage, struggles between classes,
between labor and capital, are all physical and metaphysical efforts toward freedom from
bondage, however they may be mistaken, misguided, misled, perverted to selfish and
destructive purposes and ends.

The principle of an underlying Spiritual and Intellectual evolution proceeding apace
with its visible manifestation in physical effects, will disclose unerringly that the
formation of the Society and the injection of the literature of Theosophy into the mind of
the race must have been preceded and accompanied by collateral efforts and resultants.
Those indirect preparations must necessarily be as varied as the varieties of human
experience and belief regarding fundamental things. And those preparations do not issue in
the first instance from any human invention or discovery, although the characters of
certain individual human beings can be and must be the channels, conscious or unconscious,
for the play of higher forces and the inspiration of higher Intelligence. The course of
all evolution is first Spiritual, then Mental, then Personal to certain gifted
individuals. From these latter it permeates gradually the race mind, impelling the whole
mass forward and upward, in however slow or slight degree. "Evolution" appears
as physical only to those who do not look beneath the surface of events. The real process
of Nature is ever cyclic: from the highest to the lowest on the invisible side of Nature;
correspondingly from the lowest to the highest on the visible side, as human vision is at
present exercised in the fields of religion, philosophy and science.

Indirect but none the less potent and necessary concomitants of the spiritual and
psychical aspects of the Theosophical Movement should therefore be looked for

--- 3

in all directions. One of these was and is the great tide of interest in Oriental
religions and philosophies. Until the work of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was well
under way none but the conqueror, the merchant, the missionary and the philologist, each
immersed in his own especial objects, had any concern with the Far East. The mass of the
populations of the Western world were farther removed from the living East with its
immense but alien wealth of metaphysical acquisitions, than from the dead and by-gone
stores of ancient Greece and imperial Rome. Generally speaking, it was unknown and
unsuspected that the great leaders of early European civilization, no less than their
modern successors, had in fact derived their inspiration and their learning from the
exhaustless treasury of Oriental thought and practice.

Beginning with Wilkins near the close of the eighteenth century, a series of
translations of the ancient and venerated "Bhagavad-Gita" had successively been
brought out in England, in Germany, in France and in the United States. The riches of the
Vedanta philosophy had thus to some extent become accessible to aspiring minds in the
West. Copies came into the possession of Thoreau and Emerson. Emerson's fame as a lecturer
and writer and the nobility of his character made of him one of the most potent vehicles
for the dissemination of the great and timeless ideas of the East. Through his life and
work countless younger minds were given a freer range and truer basis, and by so much
freed from the sterile and narrow dogmas of sectarian Christianity. Religion was seen by
many not to be confined nor due to sects or special revelations. The celebrated
"Brook Farm Community" spread far and wide transcendental aspirations and
increased the thirst for freedom from the bondage of prevailing ideas.

Sir Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia" was published in 1879, and read by
hundreds of thousands in Europe and America. Myriads of minds gained for the first time,
some true idea of the noble ethics and philosophy of Buddhism, and were amazed to find
that for centuries antedating the time of Jesus his moral teachings had been

--- 4

imparted in their plenitude, coupled with a philosophy unknown to the Christian world
at anytime. Scholarly men began to give some heed other than purely scholastic to Oriental
experience as embodied in its age-old literary remains. Despite the general contempt for
"heathen" people and the exclusiveness of ignorance that had so long obtained,
Western explorers began in earnest to adventure in search of the hereditary metaphysical
possessions of the Orient, much in the same fashion as other Western adventurers had long
exploited by conquest or by theft the physical treasures of the sacred East. Wilson's
translation of the "Vishnu Purana" and Dr. Max Muller's edition of the
"Sacred Books of the East," were part of the fruitage thus made accessible in
the West.

When Charles Darwin's great work, "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection," appeared in 1859, a powerful voice was raised against the deeply imbedded
ideas of miracle and special creation by an omnipotent personal God, as engraved by
centuries of dogmatic theologies. Mr. Darwin's work was not intended as an attack either
on revealed religion or the dead-letter creeds, but was limited to the presentation of an
immense accumulation of ascertained facts in natural history, and to the submission of
inferences drawn with inescapable logic from the facts thus far amassed. It was perhaps
the most brilliant example in history of sustained inductive reasoning. It showed and
proved physical man to be no "special creation," but an evolutionary part of the
"natural order of things." "The Origin of Species," and its
supplement, "The Descent of Man," published in 1871, were purely scientific
works in the best sense of the term. The "Darwinian theory" was received by the
educated world with profound interest, followed by a tidal wave of revulsion as its
bearing and effects upon current Christian dogmas and interpretations of the Bible were
perceived. It was attacked on every hand and its author was subjected to every form of
ridicule, slander and calumny that religious bigotry, ever the most fertile in malice and
malevolence, could invent. Never-

--- 5

theless, as scientific students verified its compilations of physical facts and tried
conclusions with its logic, the theory gained headway in spite of all the storms of
opposition. Its author lived to see his facts admitted, his conclusions accepted and
adopted in whole or in part, even by his detractors. Corrupted and grotesquely distorted
as the Darwinian theory has been in the intervening years, and however limited in its view
of "evolution" from the standpoint of Occult philosophy, it none the less
remains to this day the greatest advance in scientific hypotheses since the time of
Newton, and aided largely in making possible the presentation of the triple evolutionary
scheme outlined in the "Secret Doctrine." Whatever the defects of the Darwinian
theory, they are due to no lack of honesty, zeal nor industry on the part of its great
author, but rather to the limitations of his mode of research and to the inherent defect
of all inductive reasoning. So immense has been the effect of the Darwinian theory of
evolution on the ideas prevailing without question a generation ago, that it is very
difficult for the average mind of today to realize how this theory of physical evolution
could ever have been questioned, denied, opposed, vilified.

In his "History of Civilization in England," a work foremost among the
contributory factors we are discussing, Mr. Henry T. Buckle sums up these lessons of the
past which, in our opinion, are equally a prophecy of the future of Theosophy and the
Theosophical Movement, however unconscious Mr. Buckle may have been of the immense reach
of the spiritual and intelligent Agencies at work behind the scenes of human life. In the
first volume of his work, which appeared in 1857, Mr. Buckle writes (p. 257):

"Owing to circumstances still unknown there appear from time to time great
thinkers who devoting their lives to a single purpose are able to anticipate the progress
of mankind, and to produce a religion or a philosophy by which important events are
eventually brought about.

--- 6

But if we look into history we shall clearly see that, although the origin of a new
opinion may be thus due to a single man, the result which the new opinion produces will
depend on the condition of the people among whom it is propagated. If either a religion or
a philosophy is too much in advance of a nation, it can do no present service, but must
bide its time until the minds of men are ripe for its reception.... Every science, every
creed has had its martyrs. According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few generations
pass away, and then there comes a period when these very truths are looked upon as
common-place facts, and a little later there comes another period in which they are
declared to be necessary, and even the dullest intellect wonders how they could ever have
been denied."

The student of Theosophy knows that the "circumstances still unknown" to Mr.
Buckle, but which he intuitively recognized to exist, are in fact due to the Karmic
provision of Spiritual and Intellectual evolution. Under Karmic Law, at transitional
periods in the cyclic progression of Humanity, great Adepts restore to mankind through
both direct and indirect channels some of the Wisdom once "known," but which in
the lapse of time has become lost or obscured during the complexities of physical and
personal evolution. For it must not be overlooked by the student that these Elder Brothers
are themselves a part of the very stream of evolution in which we belong. As such, They
take an active, albeit undisclosed and but too often unperceived, share in the government
of the natural order of things. And although this part of the operation of cyclic law is
often delayed and defied by the ignorance and prejudice of mankind in general, each rise
and fall of civilizations is succeeded by a regeneration and further progression.

Other constructive factors in the preparatory work of the Theosophical Movement in our
time may be seen in the great and sudden leap (from the standpoint of racial

--- 7

and national cycles) in invention, discovery, trade, the means and methods of
transportation, manufacture, and utilization of all the raw materials in Nature - all
making in one way and another for inter-dependence, inter-communication, inter-respect in
the great human family, and the consequent breaking down of the barriers of Nature, of
human insularity, and separateness: a harrowing of the soil, whether by the means of war
or peace, as a necessary prelude for once more sowing in that soil the seeds of
Brotherhood. And in the political field the great careers of Abraham Lincoln, of John
Bright, of Mazzini, and many others, all made for the Rights of Man, as opposed to the
forces of reaction.

In an iconoclastic sense an equally necessary and valuable pioneer work in the breaking
of the molds of fixed ideas into which human thought forever tends to crystallize, can be
discerned in the work of such men as Robert G. Ingersoll in America, Charles Bradlaugh in
England, and, in the church, by such men as Charles Kingsley and W.E. Channing. Whether
apparently pursuing the path of agnosticism, of a purely socialistic and materialistic
altruism, or of a liberalized orthodoxy, the efforts of all these commanded a wide
following and broke to a large extent the hold of bigotry and intolerance. Philosophical
speculations like those of Herbert Spencer, the esthetic spirit of men like Ruskin, the
rebellious mind of Carlyle, the insubordination to the harrow of conventional ideas of
writers like Dickens, George Eliot, Balzac, Tolstoy, Walt Whitman, and many others, all
aided in the pioneer work of the Theosophical Movement. They may all be said to have
fought for the unrestricted domain of the individual conscience, the larger outlook upon
human life and human duty, as opposed to the ipse dixit of any "thus saith the
Lord." All these individual and collective factors, some, perhaps, dimly conscious of
the germinal force at work within themselves, others aware only of the travail without
issue of human existence - all were of value. All that in any way has made, or that makes,
possible the arousal of serious attention to the Second and Third Objects of the Parent
Theosophi-

--- 8

cal Society, all that facilitates the revolt of the mind and conscience from creedal
exclusiveness, all that might turn men from the sordid materialism of a one-life existence
devoted to the pursuit of physical well-being - all this is truly a concurrent part of the
Theosophical Movement, and necessary to any attempt at the, practical realization of its
First Object - Universal Brotherhood, the life of service as opposed to the life for self.

The ideas represented by such terms as revealed religion, a favored people, a personal
God, miracles, heaven gained by an "act of faith," a "vicarious
atonement," selfish personal salvation - the fetters forged by many centuries of
ecclesiastical usurpation of authority over the ignorant mind and conscience: all these
veritable Bastilles of moral and mental tyranny were under assault or siege during a large
part of the nineteenth century. Their lettres de cachet no longer sufficed to
imprison or outcast the individual mind, to forfeit the reputable estate of the individual
rebel against the "established order." If the mind of the race could not be said
to have been in revolution against spiritual and mental intolerance, it was none the less
true that everywhere could be found sincere and reverent-minded men in outspoken rebellion
against the dominant and dominating ideas of centuries. The "millennium" of
sectarian religion was drawing to a close. Agnosticism, infidelity, bold questioning of
the foundations hitherto esteemed inviolate, were no longer branded with the brand of
infamy by the all-powerful sects, because the sects were no longer all-powerful. A spirit
of liberty, often of license mistaken for liberty, was abroad in Europe and America. Even
in India the Brahmo-Somaj of Ramohun Roy and his successors had begun to undermine the
ancient walls of creed and caste.

Spiritualism had perhaps more to do than any other single factor in producing among
millions that transitional state of mind into which the granite ideas of centuries had
begun to disintegrate. This Ishmael among faiths, under many names and proscriptions, is
as old as the history and tradition of the race. In its modern

--- 9

form it began with the mediumistic manifestations of the Fox sisters at Rochester in
New York State, U.S.A., in 1848. In the ensuing twenty-five or thirty years it spread, in
spite of the most relentless opposition of the orthodox Christian sects, despite the
ridicule of scientific students and the incredulity of the general public, despite also
the real or pretended exposures of many of the most noted mediums, until its believers
were numbered by millions in America, England, France, and in lesser numbers in other
countries. Most celebrated of the mediums following the Fox sisters were the Americans,
Andrew Jackson Davis, his disciple Thomas Lake Harris, P.B. Randolph, Daniel Dunglas Home,
the Davenport brothers, Henry Slade, Mrs. Emma H. Britten, and the Eddy brothers. All
these were accused of fraud times without number, and some of them were made the victims
of persecution. Nevertheless, the genuineness, variety and extent of their phenomena were
attested by numbers of famous investigators of the highest character. Notable among those
who from sceptical experimenters became convinced believers in the reality of the
manifestations were Dr. Robert Hare of Philadelphia, Epes Sargent, Judge Edmunds, the
noted lawyer, Dr. Robert Chambers, Col. Olcott, and many other men of mark in America. In
England Profs. William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace, Lodge, C.C. Massey, Lord Borthwick,
Lord Lindsay, Sergeant Cox, and other men of the highest standing accepted the evidences
after searching tests. In Germany the famous Prof. Zollner held prolonged sittings with
Slade and others and published his conclusions and theories in the work,
"Transcendental Physics," dealing with the phenomena as a problem in the
"fourth dimension." In France the Emperor Napoleon and his wife, and in Russia
the Czar and his consort became the firm friends and followers of Mr. D.D. Home. The
Papers of the Russian savant, Dr. A. Aksakoff, show how profound was his interest in the
new phenomena. Leon-Denizarth-Hippolyte Rivail, author of numerous popular and educational
scientific texts for French

--- 10

schools, became so interested in the phenomena and so convinced of their value in
establishing communication with discarnate intelligences, that he devoted his entire time
to study and experiments. In order that the prejudices thus aroused should not interfere
with his established writings and reputation he adopted the pseudonym of "Allan
Kardec," by which he is now almost universally known. Contrary to the general
supposition, Allan Kardec was not himself a medium. All his experiments were conducted at
second hand. He published two books of enormous circulation, the "Book of
Spirits," and the "Book of Mediums," both of which were translated into
English. The French editions alone of "Le Livre des Esprits" attained a
circulation of more than one hundred and twenty thousand copies in the twenty years
following the publication of the "revised edition" in 1857. It was Allan Kardec
who, more than any other, made systematic efforts to establish a philosophy of
Spiritualism from the communications he obtained through carefully chosen mediums.

The spread of Spiritualism was greatly facilitated by a number of factors. It required
no education, no study, no moral discipline, on the part either of the medium or the
believer. Its phenomena were not essentially antagonistic to religion, and the
communications received more often than otherwise repeated the platitudes of the churches.
In fact nearly every noted medium or reputable proponent of the phenomena was still more
or less orthodox in his acceptance of the fundamental dogmas of the Christian creeds. To
the bereaved who might be more or less sceptical or indifferent to orthodox teachings
regarding after-death states, Spiritualism made a profound appeal, for it offered the
prospect of immediate assurance and consolation. To the materialistic and the
curious-minded it offered a fascinating subject for facile experimentation. Nor can it be
doubted that in the increasing dilemma of many, due to the Darwinian theory of physical
evolution, Spiritualism offered an attractive middle ground of experimental evidence that
enabled them, without too great sacrifice of cherished religious

--- 11

convictions or logical common-sense, both to hold on to hereditary Christian ideas and
to accept the theory of "evolution." And in this compromise many were doubtless
moved by the example of Prof. Wallace, co-originator with Mr. Darwin of his theory. Prof.
Wallace was himself a Spiritualist and a believer in Christianity, even if not altogether
orthodox in his faith.

In a single generation Spiritualism, from being a pariah both as to its phenomena and
its many theories, became almost respectable. Modern science, hitherto deaf, dumb and
blind towards everything but the empirical acquisition of physical facts and hypotheses
based on them, began, reluctantly and suspiciously, but still began, to take note of the
phenomena of the metaphysical, which, if true, compelled the admission of other factors
than "force and matter" as the causative agencies of the phenomenal world. But
the general attitude of scientific students towards Spiritualism affords a curious
parallel to the attitude of the theologians toward Darwinism: first derision and contempt,
then wholesale denial and opposition, then grudging acceptance in part.

Into this mighty arena of contending forces entered H.P. Blavatsky with her
Theosophical Society and her first public exposition of Theosophy. Looking backwards from
the safe distance of the intervening years, something of the significance of the mighty
struggle between orthodox Christianity and modern materialistic science, between both
these and the changeling, Spiritualism, can now be discerned in the light of history - a
light necessarily denied all the active combatants except H.P.B. herself. That she saw and
foresaw what was and was to be, and was herself under no illusions, is very clearly
indicated in the Preface of "Isis Unveiled" alone, without going deeper into the
abundant evidences. Bitterly as theology and science might be opposed to each other with
spear and trident, each was, at the last quarter of the nineteenth century, equally
hostile to the new combatant, Spiritualism, armed with its net of weird phenomena and
strange theories. Alone, friendly to all the gladiators, but without a solitary un-

--- 12

derstanding ally among them, H.P.B. came equipped with an unknown knowledge and an
unknown purpose which must serve her for both sword and shield. It was too much for her to
hope, however vast the reconstructive forces loosed by her in the world of public opinion,
that those forces, their source, their scope and their significance, would be grasped by
any but the very few. Nor did she expect that their effect on the mind of the race would
be altogether and immediately constructive, however beneficent her purpose might be. Nor
could she look for other than a hostile and retardative reception at the hands of vested
and mercenary interests, the ignorant and the dogmatic, the predantry and contentious.
Although her aim was to elevate the mind of the race, her method could only be to deal
with that mind as she found it, by trying to lead it on, step by step; by seeking out and
educating a few who, appreciating the majesty of the eternal Wisdom-Religion and devoted
to "the great orphan-humanity," could carry on her work with zeal and wisdom; by
founding a society which, however small its numbers might be, would inject into the
thought of the day the ideas, the doctrines, the nomenclature of the Wisdom-Religion.

The Theosophical Movement of the nineteenth century was publicly
inaugurated with the founding of the Theosophical Society at New York City.

By birth a Russian of noble family, Madame Blavatsky had been a wanderer for more than
twenty years in many lands, oriental and occidental. She had twice or thrice been in the
Americas, North and South, before coming to New York in July of 1873. She lived in
retirement there and in Brooklyn for more than a year. In October of 1874 she journeyed to
the Eddy farmhouse near Chittenden, Vermont, and there made the acquaintance of Col. Henry
S. Olcott.

Colonel Olcott was an American and had acquired his title in the American Civil War. He
had been agricultural editor of the New York Tribune, had written many articles for
various publications on many subjects, had been admitted to the bar, and was at the time a
well-known lawyer, with a very wide acquaintance among prominent men. For many years he
had been a Spiritualist. Interested in an account he had seen of the manifestations taking
place through the mediumship of the Eddy brothers, he had visited Chittenden in July and
written an account of what he had witnessed for the New York Sun. This article was
copied and commented on in many publications. In September Col. Olcott returned to the
Eddy place under commission to investigate the phenomena and report on them to the New
York Graphic. It was while he was engaged in this congenial work that Madame Blavatsky
arrived at Chittenden.

Although Madame Blavatsky apparently took no part in the proceedings other than as a
visitor and interested witness, Col. Olcott noted that the phenomena

--- 14

changed greatly in character and variety immediately after her arrival. He was so
impressed by what he saw and by his conversations with Madame Blavatsky that he followed
up the acquaintance after her return to New York.

At the request of Madame Blavatsky he introduced to her a young lawyer of his
acquaintance named William Q. Judge. Mr. Judge was of Irish parentage, and had been
brought by his family to America while still a boy. From his earliest years he had been
markedly religious in temperament, and, as he grew older, had delved in religions,
philosophies, mystical writings, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and kindred subjects. He was
many years younger than either Madame Blavatsky or Col. Olcott, who were born,
respectively, in 1831 and 1832, while Mr. Judge's birth date was 1851. Both Col. Olcott
and Mr. Judge became pupils of Madame Blavatsky and passed all their available time in her
company.

In the winter of 1874-5 Madame Blavatsky was in Philadelphia, where she made the
acquaintance of several noted Spiritualists. With them and Col. Olcott she attended the
seances of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes and others. Certain sceptical investigators having attacked
in the press the genuineness of the Eddy and Holmes phenomena, and questioned the bona
fides of any mediumship, both Col. Olcott and Madame Blavatsky replied vigorously,
defending the fact of mediumship itself, and urging the necessity for impartial
investigation of the claims of Spiritualism, both as to its philosophy and its alleged
facts. This was Madame Blavatsky's first appearance in print in the English language. The
peculiarities of her style of expression, the boldness of her statements, the apparent
range of her knowledge on the subject, all conspired to attract the attention of
Spiritualists, investigators, and the public generally.

In January, 1875, Col. Olcott's book, "People From the Other World," was
issued, describing in detail the Eddy and Holmes phenomena, and giving a
curiosity-provoking account of Madame Blavatsky. Whatever opinion any reader may form of
the marvels described,

--- 15

or of Col. Olcott's comments and conclusions, there can be no question of his good
faith. Nor, as the book was written during the very period of the occurrences, can there
be any question that it reflects accurately the opinions and state of mind of Col. Olcott
at the time.

On Madame Blavatsky's return to New York from Philadelphia she took apartments at 46
Irving Place. The wonders recited by Col. Olcott and her own letters to the newspapers had
drawn so much attention to her that her rooms became a center of attraction. Nearly every
evening was given over to visitors. One of the newspaper reporters dubbed her apartment
"the lamasery," and the name quickly became current as typifying the flavor of
mystery surrounding her and the subjects discussed at her soirees. To these evening
gatherings came Spiritualists, Kabalists, Platonists, students of modern science and of
ancient mysteries, the profane, the sceptical, the curious and the seekers after the
marvelous. Colonel Olcott and Mr. Judge were nearly always present, and, after the
departure of the casual visitors, would remain far into the night immersed in study and
discussion.

In their many conversations she told them more or less of her travels and their
purpose. Amongst other experiences she had endeavored unsuccessfully to establish a group
at Cairo, Egypt, in 1871, to investigate the rationale of mediumship and its phenomena.
Moved by what he had seen and heard, no less than by his ardent desire to explore more
deeply the phenomena which fascinated him, Col. Olcott had proposed, as early as May,
1875, to form a secret "miracle club" for the production and examination of
phenomena. Colonel Olcott's own account, written many years after the event, states that
the "miracle club" plan failed because the expected medium could not be obtained
for the experiments he desired to conduct. The fact that he was so fascinated by the
phenomena privately performed by Madame Blavatsky in exposition of her theories, that he
thought her "infallible" and her Masters "miracle workers," would
indicate that the "expected medium" was none other

--- 16

than Madame Blavatsky herself, and that the failure of his attempt was due to her
refusal, then as thereafter throughout her career, to lend herself to the production of
phenomena under his or anyone's directions, or for the purposes he and others desired.

On the evening of September 7, 1875, a talk was given in Madame Blavatsky's apartment
by a Mr. G.H. Felt, who had been a student of Egyptian mysticism, and who professed to be
able to control "elementals." While the assemblage was discussing the talk, Col.
Olcott wrote on a slip of paper which he handed to Mr. Judge these words: "Would it
not be a good thing to form a society for this kind of study!" Mr. Judge read the
paper, passed it to Madame Blavatsky, who nodded assent, and then Mr. Judge proposed that
the assemblage come to order and that Col. Olcott act as chairman to consider the
proposal. Another meeting was arranged for the following evening at Madame Blavatsky's
rooms and at that time sixteen persons gave in their names as being willing to join in
founding a society for Occult study. Other meetings were held at Col. Olcott's law
offices, and at the residence of Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten in furtherance of the proposed
society. On September 13 the name, The Theosophical Society, was chosen. On October 16 a
preamble and by-laws were adopted. On October 30 additional names were added to the list
of "Founders," and Officers and a Council were elected. The principal Officers
were Col. Olcott as President, Madame Blavatsky as Corresponding Secretary, and Mr. Judge
as Counsel. On the evening of November 17 a formal meeting was held at Mott Memorial Hall,
64 Madison Avenue. Colonel Olcott delivered an "Inaugural Address" and 500
copies of this address were ordered electrotyped "for immediate distribution."

Thereafter, stated meetings continued to be held from time to time; various talks and
lectures were given, much discussion ensued and many plans for experimentation in
phenomena were proposed. Neither Madame Blavatsky nor Mr. Judge took any active part in
the meetings after the first few sessions. The former busied

--- 17

herself in correspondence, in communications to the press, in discussion with the
steady stream of visitors to "the lamasery," and in the writing of "Isis
Unveiled." Mr. Judge, occupied with the necessities of his daily living, gave his
evenings to study under Madame Blavatsky's direction and instruction. Colonel Olcott alone
was active in the meetings of the Society. Additional Fellows were admitted from time to
time, both Active and Corresponding, and great efforts made to procure phenomena. Mr.
Felt's promised revelations failed to materialize and after a time he left the Society, as
did most of the other early members when it was found that the expectations aroused were
not fulfilled. Very early in the history of the Society Mr. Felt had exacted a pledge of
secrecy regarding the disclosures he had promised to make, and this was signed, at his and
Col. Olcott's request, by most of the attendant Fellows. It was this pledge which was many
years later published in the New York Herald as the original pledge of secrecy of
the Theosophical Society, and afterwards incorporated in "Hours With the
Ghosts," by Henry Ridgely Evans, published by Laird & Lee, Chicago, in 1897. The
material for the Herald attacks was supplied by Mr. Henry J. Newton, one of the
original Founders, who had been elected Treasurer of the Society at its inception. He was
a well-known and ardent Spiritualist who became bitterly hostile to the Society after the
publication of "Isis Unveiled." Others among the Founders were Mrs. Emma
Hardinge Britten and her husband Dr. Britten. Both were Spiritualists and Mrs. Britten was
herself a versatile medium, very widely known as the author or reputed author of
"Ghostland," "Art Magic," "Nineteenth Century Occultism,"
and other writings. She had also been active in the investigations conducted by the London
"Dialectical Society," a few years previously. Another Spiritualist Founder was
Mr. C.C. Massey, an English barrister and well-known writer for British spiritualist
publications. On his return to London after the formation of the Society, he interested a
number of others, among them the famous

--- 18

W. Stainton Moses ("M.A. Oxon"), and Miss Emily Kislingbury, at that time
Secretary of the British Spiritualist Association. The British Theosophical Society was
established in 1876, with Mr. Massey as its first President. The members of the British
Society were accepted as "Corresponding Fellows" of the Parent Society, but were
not formally recognized until the summer of 1878, when John Storer Cobb, the then
Recording Secretary, journeyed to London for the purpose, under commission from the Parent
Society. With the exception of Miss Kislingbury nearly all the original and early London
Fellows later became antagonistic. Both in London and New York nearly the entire
membership consisted of Spiritualists. As phenomena were not forthcoming, as the teachings
of Madame Blavatsky came to be recognized as fatal to the theory that mediumistic
communications are messages from departed human beings, the great majority of Spiritualist
members either silently dropped out or became the most active enemies of the new Society.

Another early Fellow was Dr. Alexander Wilder, the learned Platonist, who remained
friendly to the Society and its purposes throughout his life. It was he who read the
manuscript of "Isis Unveiled" and recommended its publication to Mr. J.W.
Bouton. He also wrote most of the prefatory article "Before the Veil," which
precedes Chapter I of Volume 1 of "Isis." In other ways, also, he was helpful to
Madame Blavatsky and her mission, and his services were often gratefully referred to by
her. Other early members were Rev. J.H. Wiggin, a Unitarian clergyman, Dr. Seth Pancoast
of Philadelphia, a lifetime student of the Kabbala, and Major-General Abner W. Doubleday,
U.S. Army, retired. General Doubleday remained a consistent and devoted member of the
Society to the day of his death. He became President pro tem. after the departure
of Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott for India, and spent much of his time in
correspondence and other activities in behalf of the Society. Some unique manuscripts and
rare books given by him to the original library of the

--- 19

New York Society are in the possession of the writers. One of his last services was to
present the Society with a complete file of the first six volumes of The Theosophist,
completely indexed in manuscript prepared and written out by himself.

Through the labors of Madame Blavatsky, Corresponding Fellows were obtained in many
lands. In this way the Ionian Theosophical Society was established at Corfu in 1877. Other
activities by correspondence resulted in an affiliation with the Arya Samaj, a Hindu
association originally formed for the revival of interest in the ancient scriptures and
philosophical systems of India. It was presided over by the Swami, Dayanand Sarasvati,
well known in his native country. Joint diplomas were issued to many Fellows of the T.S.
as members of "The Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj of Aryavart" (the
ancient designation of India). This alliance endured until 1881, when it was ruptured and
the Swami and his partisans became violent opponents to the T.S. in India. A very full
account of the various difficulties is contained in the "Extra Supplement" to The
Theosophist for July, 1882.

As originally constituted the Theosophical Society was entirely democratic in its
by-laws and organization. All Officers were elective. Changes in by-laws, whether by
substitution or otherwise, had first to be submitted in writing at a stated meeting at
least thirty days prior to a vote, and then ratified by the affirmative action of
two-thirds of the Fellows present. All nominations for Fellowship were required to be in
writing, to be endorsed by two Fellows in good standing, and approved by the Council.
Three classes of Fellows were provided for: Active, Corresponding and Honorary, whose
nature is sufficiently indicated by their designations. The earlier Societies established
after the foundation of the Parent body adopted its preamble and made additional rules and
by-laws not in conflict, to suit themselves. Intercourse between the various Societies was
more or less desultory and informal, but all Fellows received their diplomas from the
Parent Society until branch Societies

--- 20

began to be formed in India, when diplomas were signed by Col. Olcott and Madame
Blavatsky. In America diplomas were signed after 1878 by Gen. Doubleday as President pro
tem., and by Mr. Judge as Recording Secretary, until 1883, after which date diplomas
were signed in the first instance in India or America as exigency might require, until
1885, after which time H.P.B. being in Europe, Mr. Judge in America, and Col. Olcott in
India, all regular diplomas were signed in the first instance by Col. Olcott as de
facto President of all the Theosophical Societies. Diplomas, when issued, were
recognized as valid certificates of Fellowship by all lodges wherever situated.

No formal Convention of all the Societies was ever held during the existence of the
Parent body, but in India a species of gathering or "Anniversary Convention" was
held as early as 1880, and thereafter annually at the end of each year. These were
attended by delegates from the Indian and Ceylon Lodges and by occasional visitors from
Europe and America. No Sections were organized during the first ten years of the Society's
history.

The Parent Theosophical Society had three declared Objects, and these were formally
adopted by all subsequently formed Societies except a few of the Indian branches. Those
Objects were:

I. To form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of
race, creed, sex, caste, or color;

II. The study of ancient and modern religions, philosophies and sciences, and the
demonstration of the importance of such study; and

III. The investigation of the unexplained laws of Nature and the psychical powers
latent in man.

Assent to the First Object only was required of all Fellows, the remaining Objects
being set forth as sub-sidiary and optional. Originally, and until as late as 1885, a form
of initiation, several times changed, was used for the induction of new members, and the
proceedings of the several Societies were quasi-private.

--- 21

In the beginning the Parent Society and the other Theosophical bodies had no literature
of their own. The Kabbala, translations of Plato, Oriental philosophies and religions, the
Spiritualist publications, the numerous writings of Christian mystics, and the existent
Western works on magic, hypnotism, mesmerism and related subjects supplied the only
material for study.

Madame Blavatsky had begun the composition of "Isis Unveiled" in 1874, and
this work she continued steadily, subject to the multifarious interruptions and activities
occasioned by her increasing acquaintance and the labors incident to her work as
Corresponding Secretary of the new Society. In order to be near at hand in the preparation
of "Isis" for the press, Col. Olcott and his sister, Mrs. Mitchell, took rooms
in the same building with Madame Blavatsky's apartment. Most of the proofs of
"Isis" were read by him, and the arrangement of the text is his. Both Col.
Olcott and H.P.B. were greatly hampered by the lack of works of reference, by attendant
circumstances, and by special difficulties. English was a foreign tongue to H.P.B. and had
never been acquired by her except in a colloquial sense in childhood. She was entirely
unfamiliar with current literary usages or the exigencies of the printer's art. On his
side Col. Olcott had but the slightest acquaintance with many of the subjects treated; was
totally ignorant of most of the languages ancient and modern necessarily referred to, and
the authors and authorities whose statements were quoted and discussed. The almost endless
ramifications of theologies, philosophies and other writings referred to were for the most
part unknown to him, and in many cases no exact equivalents or corresponding terms existed
in English to convey the desired meanings and interpretations. A further difficulty
developed in Madame Blavatsky's having occasion to rewrite large portions of the text, or
to incorporate new matter in the proofs, even after the stereotype plates were cast. When
the many obstacles are considered, it is remarkable that so few errors exist in the work
as finally published by Mr. J.W. Bouton of New York in

--- 22

the early autumn of 1877. Two editions of "Isis" were immediately exhausted,
and new editions followed from the original plates for many years. An edition of
"Isis" was also issued many years later by Mrs. Tingley's Theosophical
organization from the original Bouton plates, with additional matter. Still another
edition of "Isis" reset throughout has been published by the same organization.
An entirely new edition was also issued in London in 1907 by the Theosophical Publishing
Society, affiliated with Mrs. Besant's Theosophical organization.

Some corrections of the more glaring errors in the original Bouton editions of
"Isis" were made at various times by Madame Blavatsky, in The Theosophist,
The Path and Lucifer, but the original plates, not being owned by her, could
not be corrected.

"Isis Unveiled" having been completed and the Society in America being on as
firm a footing as possible, active preparations began to carry its propaganda to other
countries where beginnings had already been made. Accordingly, a little over a year after
the publication of "Isis," Madame Blavatsky and Col. Olcott sailed for India as
a "committee" of the Society. A fortnight's stay was made in London,
arrangements were made at Paris for the immediate formation of "The Theosophical
Society of French Spiritists," and the two Founders proceeded on their way, arriving
at Bombay, India, February 16, 1879.

Almost at once accessions to the Society began in India, both among English residents
and Hindus. Learned members of the various sects and castes, pundits, professors of the
various schools of Hindu philosophy, Indian rulers, writers, lawyers, gave their adhesion
to the Society. Among noted English Fellows in India were Major-General Morgan, British
Army, retired, and his wife; Mr. A.O. Hume, late Secretary to the Government of India; and
Mr. A.P. Sinnett, editor of the leading pro-Government organ, the Allahabad Pioneer.
In October of 1879 Madame Blavatsky began the publication of The Theosophist. The
magazine soon attained a wide

--- 23

circulation not only in India, but in Europe and America as well. In 1881 Mr. Sinnett's
book, "The Occult World," was published at London. It was subsequently
republished in America, and passed through many editions. It was followed in 1883 by
"Esoteric Buddhism," which circulated as extensively. In India, "Hints on
Esoteric Theosophy, No. 1," was issued in 1882, and "No. 2" a year later.
In 1881 Col. Olcott published his "Buddhist Catechism," a work which was later
adopted as accurate by both the Northern and Southern wings of the Buddhist faith, and
which speedily passed through a score of editions and is still being published. In the
period from 1879 to 1884 there were established in India and Ceylon an even hundred
Theosophical Societies. For the first time in recorded history, some approach to
fellowship in a common society with a common aim was brought about amongst members of
sects and castes which from time immemorial had considered it a sin and a degradation to
meet and mingle on equal terms.

Correspondence with the Parent, the British and the French Societies, and with H.P.B.,
resulted in the formation of several additional Societies in America and Europe in the
first decade of the Movement. Thus the "St. Thomas" Society in the Danish West
Indies was formed in 1881, the "Post Nubila Lux" Society at The Hague, Holland,
the "Odessa Group" in Russia in 1883, the "Scottish" at Ayre, the
"Germania" at Elberfeld, in 1884. The Queensland Society in Australia was formed
in 1881. In the United States the first Society established after the Parent body was the
Rochester T.S., organized in July, 1882, by the efforts of Mrs. J.W. Cables. The first
publication in America devoted to Theosophical subjects was The Occult Word, the
first number of which was issued by Mrs. Cables in April, 1884. The "Pioneer"
T.S. was formed at St. Louis in the summer of 1883, and the "Gnostic" at
Washington, D.C., in 1884.

Madame Blavatsky's first work was with the Spiritualists. When her powerful voice was
raised in their

--- 24

defense, when she demanded that their wonders should be investigated with an open mind,
their claims examined impartially, she was hailed as a friend, as an ally, as a champion
of the new dispensation. When it was noised about through the indiscreet but well-meant
laudations of Col. Olcott that she was herself a medium par excellence, she was
acclaimed as a prophet. Her soirees and her Society were crowded with the rush of
seekers demanding a sign. But when she refused to produce the hoped-for marvels; when in
her conversations and letters to the press she hinted at other and truer explanations of
the phenomena than "communications from the dead"; when she uttered veiled
warnings regarding the dangers of mediumship, she was listened to with surprise, with
incredulity, with suspicions. And when at last "Isis Unveiled" was issued, a
fierce revulsion set in, increasing as the years went on. She was denounced by some
Spiritualists as a traitor to the "cause," and slandered by others as a mere
cheating trickster, not even an honest medium. Nearly every Spiritualist who had entered
the Society departed from it, and she was generally regarded quite as much the foe of
Spiritualism as of orthodox religion or materialistic science. It is of more than passing
significance that in every case the chief enemies of H.P.B. and her teachings, both within
and without the original Theosophical Society and the many organizations which still
employ that name, have been persons who were Spiritualists, or whose natural tendencies
have been in that direction. All the many attacks upon her name and fame throughout all
the years can be traced back to their source either in Spiritualists or those addicted to
mediumship and its practices.

What, then, were her earliest expositions of Theosophy, which sufficed on the one hand
to provide the material for the growth and study of the members of the Theosophical
Society, and, on the other hand, drew upon her devoted head from the very first, a series
of attacks which, gradually increasing in range and intensity, culminated in the
tremendous explosions of 1884-5? No student of the Theosophical Movement can afford to

--- 25

neglect the most painstaking examination of "Isis Unveiled." To a summary of
its most important contents we may now turn our attention profitably, the collateral and
accompanying circumstances having been outlined.

"Isis Unveiled" is stated on its title page to be
"a master-key to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology." In
the body of the work there are said to be seven of these keys to the mysteries of Nature
and of Man, of which one only is given. The volumes are dedicated to "The
Theosophical Society which was founded to study the subjects on which they treat."

By correlating the work to the Three Objects of the Society a clear light may be had on
the method of treatment employed. Volume 1 has for its general subject
"Science," and in that respect relates strictly to the Third Object. Volume 2 is
entitled "Theology," and relates to the Second Object. But as both science and
theology relate to the great objects of human inquiry, the treatment is inter-woven and
inter-blended throughout. As all inquiry presents two general poles, the ascertainment of
facts and the consideration of their meaning and relations, so "Isis" takes up
the acquisitions of modern scientific research and the theories and hypotheses built up to
account for ascertained physical phenomena; the revelations and claims of the various
religions, particularly the Christian, are examined, and their theologies (or theories to
account for metaphysical phenomena) are analyzed.

The work is necessarily addressed to the most open-minded of the race, and the method
pursued is necessarily adapted to the limitations of those minds. It is not so much the
introduction of new evidence that is attempted, as the partial presentation of an entirely
new (to Western minds) hypothesis to explain the evidence that already exists in the
general fund of human experience.

--- 27

In the course of the work it is demonstrated over and over again that the dogmas of the
sects are not only mutually contradictory and destructive, but, as well, that sound
philosophical principles, correct logic and the proved facts of modern science are in
direct and overwhelming opposition to the claims and pretensions of theology. The same
method of examination is also applied to the "working hypotheses" of modern
science, and the various theories are tested out by comparison, one with another, all with
the facts of experience. It is conclusively established that, no more than theology, can
the philosophy of modern science stand the light of searching investigation. The believer
in theology or science is furthermore shown by masses of indisputable testimony that
certain facts exist and always have existed, which are in themselves absolutely
destructive alike of the claims of orthodox religion and materialistic science; that these
facts have been persistently overlooked, ignored or denied, both by the votaries of
"revealed religion" and of modern "exact science"; yet that these
disregarded facts have at all times been uniformly testified to by the noblest minds of
the race no less than by the common belief of mankind. Side by side, therefore, with the
introduction of the affirmative evidence of these facts is placed the testimony of the
ages as to their bearing on the great subjects of religion, philosophy and science, and
the inference is drawn that there has always existed, from the remotest times, a system
whose teachings in regard to Nature and to Man are inclusive of all things and exclusive
of nothing. This system Madame Blavatsky denominates the Hermetic philosophy, or
Wisdom-Religion, and declares that her work and mission are a "plea for the
recognition of the Wisdom-Religion as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and
theology." The work itself is the evidence that she uses the word "plea" in
its strictly legal and forensic sense. "Isis" contains the testimony, the
analysis of the evidence, the arguments, and the citations of principles, laws and
precedents. The work is "submitted to public judgment", upon its inherent

--- 28

reasonableness as to its conclusions, its verifiable accuracy as to the facts, and not
upon any assumed authority.

Turning ever and anon from the purely inductive method which characterizes the work
generally, Madame Blavatsky submits some of the principal tenets of the Wisdom-Religion,
which she names THEOSOPHY, and shows that there is more than ample ground, from evidence
accessible to the general student, to justify the statements she makes, that the
Wisdom-Religion underlies and antedates every religion, every philosophy, every system of
thought, every science known to mankind, and that all these have in point of fact sprung
from periodical impartations of portions of the Secret Doctrines by its Adept custodians.

"Isis" is in no sense put forward by its writer as an inference, a
revelation, or a speculation, although the burden of its mighty contents is necessarily
largely assumed to prove that the existence of Adepts and a Wisdom-Religion is the
unavoidable inference from the testimony; the prior missions and messages of great Adepts
the indubitable source of the great religions and the common belief in gods, saviors and
redeemers; their teachings regarding the "mysteries" the real fountain whence
have been drawn the materials for the philosophical and ethical treatises of the great
writers of all times. She shows that everywhere, from the remotest antiquity, there are
abundant indications that the arts and sciences as re-discovered in our times, were known
and practiced by the "wise men of old"; furthermore, that much was
"known" to the ancients concerning certain sciences and arts now
"unknown" even to the most advanced science and scientists of our day. And
although popular religion, philosophy and science became in time polluted with purely
human speculations and fancies, "Isis" shows that they all started originally as
clear and unadulterated streams from the mother source. What was originally a teaching
depending on knowledge and inspiration degenerated in time into mere dogmas and
speculations; what was originally a Teacher of primeval

--- 29

truths became in time an object of veneration and worship as a god or a divine
incarnation.

With these considerations in mind something may be grasped of the epochal importance of
Madame Blavatsky's first great work, and of the leading statements of Occultism embodied
in it. Although "Isis Unveiled" has been before the world for nearly half a
century few, even among Theosophists, have as yet assimilated more than a few crumbs from
this "storehouse of thought."

The plan of the work is early stated. The object is not to force upon the public the
personal views or theories of the author, nor does it aim at creating a revolution in some
department of thought:

"It is rather a brief summary of the religions, philosophies, and universal
traditions of human kind, and the exegesis of the same, in the spirit of those secret
doctrines, of which none - thanks to prejudice and bigotry - have reached Christendom
in so unmutilated a form as to secure it a fair judgment. Hence the unmerited contempt
into which the study of the noblest of sciences - that of the spiritual man - has
gradually fallen.

"In undertaking to inquire into the assumed infallibility of Modern Science and
Theology, the author has been forced, even at the risk of being thought discursive, to
make constant comparison of the ideas, achievements, and pretensions of their
representatives with those of the ancient philosophies and religious teachers. Things the
most widely separated as to time have thus been brought into immediate juxtaposition, for
only thus could the priority and parentage of discoveries and dogmas be determined. In
discussing the merits of our scientific contemporaries, their own confessions of failure
in experimental research, of baffling mysteries, of missing links in their chains of
theory, of inability to comprehend natural phenomena, of ignorance of the laws of the
causal world,

--- 30

have furnished the basis for the present study. Especially we will review the
speculations and policy of noted authorities in connection with those modern psychological
phenomena (Spiritualism) which began at Rochester and have now overspread the world. We
wish to show how inevitable were their innumerable failures, and how they must continue
until these pretended authorities go to the Brahmins and Lamaists of the far Orient, and
respectfully ask them to impart the alphabet of true science.

"Deeply sensible of the Titanic struggle that is now in progress between
materialism and the spiritual aspirations of mankind, our constant endeavor has been to
gather into our several chapters, like weapons into armories, every fact and argument that
can be used to aid the latter in defeating the former. Sickly and deformed child as it now
is, the materialism of Today is born of the brutal Yesterday. Unless its growth is
arrested it may become our master. To prevent the crushing of these spiritual aspirations,
the blighting of these hopes, and the deadening of that intuition which teaches us of a
God and a hereafter, we must show our false theologies in their naked deformity, and
distinguish between divine religion and human dogmas. Our voice is raised for spiritual
freedom, and our plea made for enfranchisement from all tyranny, whether of SCIENCE or
THEOLOGY."

The work plunges forthwith into the comparison of the ancient Occult tenets both with
modern theological dogmas and modern scientific theories. Some of the tenets laid down are
as follows:

I. The pre-existence of spiritual man clothed in a body of ethereal matter, and
with the ability to commune freely with the now unseen universes.

II. An almost incredible antiquity is claimed for the human race in its various
"coats of skin," and the great

--- 31

doctrine of Cycles of Destiny (Karma) is emphasized, as well as that these Cycles do
not affect all mankind at one and the same time, thus explaining the rise and fall of
civilizations and the existence at one and the same time of the most highly developed
races side by side with tribes sunk in savagery.

III. A double evolution, spiritual and intellectual as well as physical, is postulated
whose philosophy alone can reconcile spirit and matter and cause each to demonstrate the
other mathematically.

IV. The doctrine of the Metempsychosis of the spiritual and mental Man is given
as the key which will supply every missing link in the theories of the modern
evolutionists, as well as the mysteries of the various religions. The lower orders of
evolution are declared to have emanated from higher spiritual ones before they develop. It
is affirmed that if men of science and theologians had properly understood the doctrine of
Metempsychosis in its application to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality
of spirit it would have been perceived that this doctrine is a sublime conception. It is
demonstrated that there has not been a philosopher of any note who did not hold to this
doctrine of Metempsychosis as taught by the Brahmins, Buddhists, and later by the
Pythagoreans and the Gnostics, in its esoteric sense. For lack of comprehension of
this great philosophical principle the methods of modem science, however exact, must end
in nullity.

V. The ancients knew far more concerning certain sciences than our modern savants have
yet discovered. Magic is as old as man. The calculations of the ancients applied
equally to the spiritual progress of humanity as to the physical. Magic was
considered a divine science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity
itself. "As above, so it is below. That which has been will return again. As in
heaven, so on earth." The revolution of the physical world is attended by a like
revolution in the world of intellect - the spiritual evolution proceeding in Cycles, like
the physical one. The great kingdoms and empires of the world after reach-

--- 32

ing the culmination of their greatness, descend again, in accordance with the same
law by which they ascended; till, having reached the lowest point, humanity re-asserts
itself and mounts up once more, the height of its attainment being, by this law of
ascending progression by cycles, somewhat higher than the point from which it had before
descended.

"VI. Too many of our thinkers do not consider that the numerous changes in
language, the allegorical phrases and evident secretiveness of old Mystic writers, who
were generally under an obligation never to divulge the solemn secrets of the sanctuary,
might have sadly misled translators and commentators. One day they may learn to know
better, and so become aware that the method of extreme necessarianism was practiced in
ancient as well as in modern philosophy; that from the first ages of man, the
fundamental truths of all that we are permitted to know on earth were in the safe keeping
of the adepts of the sanctuary; that the difference in creeds and religious practice was
only external; and that those guardians of the primitive divine revelation, who had solved
every problem that is within the grasp of human intellect, were bound together by a
universal freemasonry of science and philosophy, which formed one unbroken chain around
the globe."

The first chapter of Volume 1, from which we have extracted the several statements
which we have here numbered for their better massing and comprehension, closes with a
forecast, drawn from the study of the past:

"The moment is more opportune than ever for the review of old philosophies.
Archaeologists, philologists, astronomers, chemists and physicists are getting nearer to
the point where they will be forced to consider them. Physical sci-

--- 33

ence has already reached its limits of exploration; dogmatic theology sees the springs
of its inspiration dry. Unless we mistake the signs, the day is approaching when the world
will receive the proofs that only ancient religions were in harmony with nature, and
ancient science embraced all that can be known. Who knows the possibilities of the future?
An era of disenchantment and rebuilding will soon begin - nay, has already begun. The
cycle has almost run its course; a new one is about to begin, and the future pages of
history may contain full evidence, and convey full proof that

'If ancestry can be in aught believed,

Descending spirits have conversed with man,

And told him secrets of the world unknown.'"

If we turn now to the twelfth and last chapter of Volume 2 of "Isis," we
shall be confronted with an introductory paragraph, also prophetic at the time of its
writing, now all too truly a matter of both theosophical and profane history. She there
says:

"It would argue small discernment on our part

were we to suppose that we have been followed thus far through this work by any but
metaphysicians, or mystics of some sort. Were it otherwise, we should certainly advise
such to spare themselves the trouble of reading this chapter; for, although nothing is
said that is not strictly true, they would not fail to regard the least wonderful of the
narratives as absolutely false, however substantiated."

The chapter follows with a recapitulation of the principles of natural law, covered by
the fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy as successively eluci-

--- 34

dated in the course of the work. She states them in numbered order as follows:

I. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of law - eternal,
immutable, ever-active. This "immutable law" is frequently referred to
throughout the volumes under such terms as cycles, the "law of compensation,"
Karma, "self-made destiny," and so on. Its mode of operation is incessantly
discussed in treating of the rise and fall of civilizations, successive races of men,
earth transformations, the three-fold principle of evolution, Spiritual, Mental, and
Physical; the compound nature of man and the universe; and in such terminology as
pre-existence, metempsychosis, transmigration, reincarnation, evolution, transformation,
permutation, emanation, immortality, and after-death states and conditions. Constant
effort is made to keep before the reader the unvarying principle that spiritual and mental
evolution proceeds apace with physical manifestations, and stands to physical evolution in
the relation of cause to effect. This is all summarized in the second proposition.

II. Nature is triune: there is a visible, objective Nature; an invisible, indwelling,
energizing Nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle; and, above these
two, spirit, source of all forces, alone eternal and indestructible. The lower two
constantly change; the higher third does not. This universal postulate is then applied
specifically to human nature and evolution in the third proposition.

III. Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body, his vitalizing astral
body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over and illuminated by the third
- the sovereign, the immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with
the latter, he becomes an immortal entity. The argument throughout the two large volumes
of "Isis" is always that such mergence or union is possible and is the
underlying purpose of all evolution; that such beings as Jesus, Buddha and others had in
fact arrived at this consummation, and

--- 35

that the real mission of the Founders of all religions is to point mankind to the
purpose of Mental and Spiritual evolution, and give the directions and conditions
precedent to the "perfectibility of man." Such exalted beings are by H.P.
Blavatsky variously called the sages, the Adepts, the Great Souls of all time. Their
knowledge of Nature and of Nature's laws is called in its entirety the Wisdom-Religion,
and its practical exemplification is summarized in the fourth proposition.

IV. and V. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way by
which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over Nature's forces
maybe acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the
application of this knowledge in practice. Granting that great powers exist in Nature, and
that the conscious control over these powers may be attained by the incarnated being
through metaphysical means, it follows that such control may be exercised beneficently or
maleficently. Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery, or "Black Magic";
beneficently used, true Magic or Wisdom. In either case it constitutes Adeptship, whether
of the Right- or the Left-hand Path. This is the fifth proposition, and the
text of the two volumes contains almost numberless direct and indirect references to
celebrated characters in history, tradition and myth who exemplified the two characters of
Adeptship.

VI. This proposition sets forth that Mediumship is the opposite of Adeptship. Whereas
the Adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies, the Medium is the passive
instrument of foreign influences. There is no more important practical theorem in the
whole work. Many, many pages are devoted to discussion of the characteristics, tendencies,
practices and fruits of mediumship. Its phenomena, objective and subjective, are dealt
with at length. Spiritualism, or mediumship, is shown to have been prevalent in all ages,
no matter under what names known, and its recurrence, whether in individual cases or
amongst masses of men, is shown to be subject to cyclic law, now more generally known to
The-

--- 36

osophical students under its Sanskrit designation of Karma. In Mediumship, as in
Adeptship, it is shown that there are two polar antitheses, dependent on the moral
character of the medium for the quality and range no less than the effects, good or bad,
of its exercise.

The remaining numbered propositions of the last chapter of Volume 2 will be considered
in other connections later on, (1) but their essential nature and implications are
contained in the following sentences, without the basic apprehension of which no inquiry
into Theosophy and the Theosophical Movement can be fruitful of understanding, however it
may afford information:

"To sum up all in a few words, Magic is spiritual WISDOM; nature, the material
ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common vital principle pervades all
things, and this is controllable by the perfected human will. The adept can stimulate
the movements of the natural forces in plants and animals in a preternatural degree. Such
experiments are not obstructions of nature, but quickenings; the conditions of intenser
vital action are given.

"The adept can control the sensations and alter the conditions of the physical and
astral bodies of other persons not adepts; he can also govern and employ, as he chooses,
the spirits of the elements. He cannot control the immortal spirit of any human being,
living or dead, for all such spirits are alike sparks of the Divine Essence, and not
subject to any foreign domination."

The restrictions with which the information conveyed in "Isis" is hedged
about, both from the standpoint of the teacher endeavoring to impart and the inquirer
endeavoring to learn, and the dangers, known or unknown to the latter, are indicated
towards the close of the chapter:

-----------

(1) See Chapter XXXIII.

----------

--- 37

"By those who have followed us thus far, it will naturally be asked, to what
practical issue this book tends; much has been said about magic and its potentiality, much
of the immense antiquity of its practice. Do we wish to affirm that the occult sciences
ought to be studied and practiced throughout the world? Would we replace modern
spiritualism with the ancient magic? Neither; the substitution could not be made, nor the
study universally prosecuted, without incurring the risk of enormous public dangers.

"We would have neither scientists, theologians nor spiritualists turn practical
magicians, but all to realize that there was true science, profound religion, and genuine
phenomena before this modern era. We would that all who have a voice in the education of
the masses should first know and then teach that the safest guides to human
happiness and enlightenment are those writings which have descended to us from the
remotest antiquity; and that nobler spiritual aspirations and a higher average morality
prevail in the countries where the people have taken their precepts as the rule of their
lives. We would have all to realize that magical, i.e., spiritual powers exist in
every man, and those few to practice them who feel called to teach, and are ready to pay
the price of discipline and self-conquest which their development exacts.

"Many men have arisen who had glimpses of the truth, and fancied they had it all.
Such have failed to achieve the good they might have done and sought to do, because vanity
has made them thrust their personality into such undue prominence as to interpose it
between their believers and the whole truth that lay behind. The world needs no
sectarian church, whether of Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Swedenborg, Calvin, or any other.
There being but ONE Truth, man requires but one church - the Temple of God within

--- 38

us, walled in by matter but penetrable by any one who can find the way; the pure in
heart see God. The trinity of nature is the lock of magic; the trinity of man the key that
fits it. Within the solemn precincts of the sanctuary the SUPREME had and has no name.
It is unthinkable and unpronounceable; and yet every man finds in himself his god.

"Besides, there are many good reasons why the study of magic, except in its broad
philosophy, is nearly impracticable in Europe and America. Magic being what it is, the
most difficult of all sciences to learn experimentally - its acquisition is, practically,
beyond the reach of the majority of white-skinned people; and that, whether their effort
is made at home or in the East. Probably not more than one man in a million of European
blood is fitted - either physically, morally, or psychologically - to become a practical
magician, and not one in ten millions would be found endowed with all these three
qualifications as required for the work. Unlike other sciences, a theoretical knowledge of
formulae without mental capacities or soul powers, is utterly useless in magic. The spirit
must hold in complete subjection the combativeness of what is loosely termed educated
reason, until facts have vanquished cold human sophistry."

The concluding pages of "Isis" recite that those best prepared to appreciate
Occultism are the Spiritualists, although, through prejudice, they have hitherto been the
bitterest opponents to its introduction to public notice. She sums up thus:

"Despite all foolish negations and denunciations their phenomena are real.
Despite, also, their own assertions they are wholly misunderstood by themselves. The
totally insufficient theory of the constant agency of disembodied hu-

--- 39

man spirits in their production has been the bane of the Cause. A thousand
mortifying rebuffs have failed to open their reason or intuition to the truth. Ignoring
the teachings of the past, they have discovered no substitute. We offer them philosophical
deduction instead of unverifiable hypothesis, scientific analysis and demonstration
instead of undiscriminating faith. Occult philosophy gives them the means of meeting the
reasonable requirements of science, and frees them from the humiliating necessity to
accept the oracular teachings of 'intelligences,' which as a rule have less intelligence
than a child at school. So based and so strengthened, modern phenomena would be in a
position to command the attention and enforce the respect of those who carry with them
public opinion. Without invoking such help, spiritualism must continue to vegetate,
equally repulsed - not without cause - both by scientists and theologians. In its modern
aspect it is neither a science, a religion, nor a philosophy."

With this outline of the teaching of Occultism as contained in "Isis
Unveiled"; its overwhelming arraignment out of the mouths of their own exponents, of
the religion, science and philosophy of the day; its outspoken treatment of dogmatic
Christianity, of materialistic hypotheses, of the phenomena and theories of Spiritualism,
the student can begin to comprehend the enormous difficulties faced by H.P.B. in gaining a
foothold for the Theosophical Society and a hearing for her teachings of Theosophy. Her
task was not that of a teacher in a kindergarten: to meet and lead plastic and unsullied
minds eager with interest, unburdened with preconceptions, into new and delightful paths
of occupation and learning. Far from it. Rather it was that of the alienist in a mad
world, its unsane inhabitants soaked through and through with their several illusions;
each profoundly certain of the truth of his own particular

--- 40

mania, profoundly convinced of the hallucination of all others; each looking at the
phenomena of life through the distorted lenses of fundamental misconceptions. Regardless
of names and forms, she had to reckon with the fact, from the standpoint of the teachings
of Occultism, that everywhere, the men of the Western world were fast fixed in false
beliefs, taking that to be the Eternal which is not eternal; that to be Soul which is not
soul; that to be Pure which is impure; that to be Good which is evil. She had to destroy
while seeming to create, to create while seeming to destroy.

Looking back from the present basis of tolerated if not accepted ideas, it is only by
the contrast that the supreme miracle of her wisdom can be even faintly sensed. The
identity of man with the Supreme Spirit; the doctrine of Cycles, the law of Compensation;
Spiritual and Intellectual as well as physical evolution; inherent immortality,
metempsychosis; the Spiritual Brotherhood of all beings, Adepts as the culmination of the
triple evolutionary scheme in Nature; Spirit and Matter as the eternal dual presentment of
evolving Consciousness, the polar aspects of the One Essence - all these great and supreme
ideas she and none other restored to a vital place in human thought. The words existed
- mummified forms from the by-gone Past, wrapped in the thousand cerements of the sects.
As in the Talmudic legend, she breathed upon the clay, breathed into it the breath of
life. Or, better, as in the story of Joseph, she made the dead come forth from the tomb,
clothed in the habiliments in which the living dead had buried him against a far-off
impossible resurrection.

Much has been written by Theosophists - those who owe their all to her and her work -
that the H.P.B. of 1875 was not the H.P.B. of later days; that she, like themselves, was
but a student, stumbling, halting, groping, finding her way through failures and mistakes;
that it was only in later years that she came to learn of this, of that, of reincarnation
among other matters; that many contradictions will be found in "Isis" when
compared with her final teachings.

--- 41

The inquirer into facts and philosophies has but to read "Isis," to annotate
its teachings, to compare them with all her subsequent multifarious writings to see and
know for himself that the teachings of "Isis" are her unchanging teachings; that
not in jot or in tittle is there a contradiction or a disagreement in all she ever wrote;
that in "Isis" are the foundational statements of Occultism. All her later
writings are but extensions, ramifications, the orderly development and unfolding of what
is both explicit and implicit in "Isis Unveiled." Study and comparison will do
more: it will give the student a solid and impregnable standard from which to survey the
real nature and character of the Avatar of the nineteenth century; a criterion by which,
as well, truly to measure the understanding, the nature and the development of those
disciples, students and followers of H.P.B. of whom she might well have repeated in the
words of Blake on "certain friends":

I found them blind; I taught them how to see;

And now they neither know themselves nor me.

The facts being ascertained, and some faint perception of their significance being
grasped, the student needs no interpreter to tell him that obstacles, opposition,
misunderstanding, contumely, hatred and misrepresentation were unavoidable concomitants of
every step in the progress of the Theosophical Society, no less than in the path of her
whose mission it was to be its "presiding deity." The chief of these
difficulties have now to be considered.

At first glance the Objects of the Theosophical Society might be
assumed to be in themselves so manifestly beneficial and, negatively speaking, so entirely
harmless as at once to commend them to the good-will if not to the active support of all
men everywhere. To draw this conclusion, however, is unfortunately to be blind to the
lessons of human history; is to be, ignorant of the forces which dominate the operations
of human consciousness.

Selfishness, in one or another of its countless forms, is and at all times has been the
prevailing keynote of human action. Many have been the attempts to form enduring
associations having for their prime object the realization of an actual nucleus of
universal brotherhood among men. To unite firmly a body of men in brotherly love bent on
pure altruistic work has been the dream of many high-souled men and women. Whatever of
progress and amelioration has been achieved for the race from time to time has been due to
such efforts. But in their durable purpose they have all failed of the great object, and
humanity is today waiting as vainly as ever for the accomplishment of the most holy and
most important mission that has ever commanded the devotion of the savior, the
philanthropist and the martyr. Disruptive pressures from without, disintegrating forces
from within, have in the end made mock and havoc of every attempt to embody practically
what all men reverence as the noblest of ideals. Yet the ideal persists, though its
successive incarnations wither and decay.

It cannot, then, be supposed that H.P. Blavatsky was in ignorance or misconception of
the gigantic task she set for herself in the endeavor to create among men a Society which
should have for its primary purpose the

--- 43

formation of a nucleus of actual Brotherhood. Nor is it to be imagined that she was
indifferent to or unacquainted with the causes of all former failures in that direction.
The Second and Third Objects of the Society have their real foundation in her
understanding of the causes of all failures among men to achieve their heart's ideal. So
long as men find occasion for frictions and antagonisms, rather than grounds for union and
harmony, in what they believe and practice in the name of religion, so long will they be
fundamentally at variance. So long as their ideas of knowledge - of true science - are
confined to mere bodily existence, so long will all attempts at brotherhood degenerate
into sordid search for material well-being, for physical and intellectual progress and
development only. Faith and knowledge, instead of being natural allies, will pursue
opposed courses, religion and science take mutually destructive paths, the ideal and the
practical seem to be separated by an impassable gulf.

All these things are clearly, if succinctly, indicated in the Preface to the first
volume of "Isis Unveiled." Never in all her vast outpour of teaching and
practical example did Madame Blavatsky place on record anything of more enduring and
far-reaching worth than the propositions and implications of this Preface. After
dedicating "these volumes to the Theosophical Society, which was formed in New York,
A.D.1875, to study the subjects on which they treat," her first words are an
affirmation of the existence of Masters, of the Wisdom-Religion, of her own intimate
acquaintance with Them and with Their philosophy:

"The work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate
acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science."

Here is implied the existence of an actual Brotherhood of living men, of perfected
human beings who have become such through self-induced and self-devised exertions; herein
is affirmed the perfectibility of man, the possibility of a fraternity of peace and
good-will through

--- 44

the means and the example afforded by acquaintance with and study of these Adepts and
their science. Centuries of sectarian theological teachings that man is a poor miserable
sinner, inherently imperfect and never by any possibility to become perfect save through
an act of faith in a vicarious Saviour; centuries of materialism in thought and action on
a one-life basis - over against these deeply imbedded and dominating ideas is set, sheer
and clear, the fact of Masters; not as some far-off, remote abstraction, some longed-for
but impossible ideal, some unique and special creation of a favoring God, but veritable
Divine Beings who have reached physical and mental, no less than moral and spiritual,
perfection under Law. Here is the tremendous assurance that the realization of Brotherhood
is not an impossibility to any man who will follow the path They show, by creating in and
of himself the conditions precedent to the acquisition of Their knowledge and nature.

What those conditions precedent are is indicated in the succeeding sentences:

"It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found,
and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to
aid the student to detect the vital principles which underlie the philosophical systems of
old."

All men are willing to accept truth, but each is predisposed to determine for himself
the terms and conditions upon which he will base his acceptance. Each man holds,
consciously or unconsciously to himself, certain fundamental ideas as to Deity, Nature and
Man. He will, by consequence, accept only so much of truth as may conform to those ideas,
modifying or rejecting all else. As those fundamental conceptions proceed from human
ignorance and partialities, the true vital principles which underlie the race-old systems
of thought must be detected. That cannot be for any man so long as he clings to forms of
religion and philosophy which separate instead of

--- 45

unite mankind in the bonds of true fraternity. The Second Object, the study for
comparative purposes of the various religions and philosophies, will lead to the
perception of the common vital principles upon which all faiths are founded. In this
comparative study the searcher for truth must emulate the plan and purpose of
"Isis," which is written "in all sincerity. It is meant to do even justice,
and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice. But it shows neither mercy for
enthroned error, not reverence for usurped authority. Toward no form of worship, no
religious faith, no scientific hypothesis has its criticism been directed in any other
spirit. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the mere ephemera of the world's day.
TRUTH, high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme." Unless
the inquirer adopts and maintains the spirit of "Isis," he cannot rid himself of
prejudice, of preconception, of bias and self-interest - the real barriers to knowledge
and to Brotherhood.

The Third Object runs current with the following clauses of the noble Preface:

"We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of the human mind,
nor in 'miracle,' whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a transgression of the laws
of nature instituted from all eternity. Nevertheless, we accept the saying of the gifted
author of 'Festus,' that the human heart has not yet fully uttered itself, and that we
have never attained or even understood the extent of its powers. Is it too much to believe
that man should be developing new sensibilities and a closer relation with nature? The
logic of evolution must teach as much, if carried to its legitimate conclusions. If,
somewhere, in the line of ascent from vegetable or ascidian to the noblest man a soul was
evolved, gifted with intellectual qualities, it cannot be unreasonable to believe and
infer that a faculty of perception is also growing in man, enabling

--- 46

him to descry facts and truths even beyond our ordinary ken."

He who would pass behind the "veil of Isis," and learn to fathom the
mysteries of Nature and of Man, must boldly take his stand in advance of the science of
our times and proceed to the study of the unexplained laws of Nature and the psychical
powers latent in man. The quoted sentences postulate the omnipresent existence of
immutable Law; do away with the idea of miraculous intervention in human or mundane
affairs; affirm the inherent capacity of the mind of man for such development of its
faculties as shall enable him to penetrate the arcane of being; to understand, and
understanding, control the phenomena of Nature and of his own consciousness, without which
true Brotherhood must forever remain a longed-for but inaccessible Utopia.

The Second and Third Objects thus constitute the ways and means by which alone the
great First Object may be consummated. Viewed from the standpoint of religions which teach
that enduring happiness is possible only beyond the grave, or from that of a science which
inculcates that earthly existence and earthly knowledge are all that are accessible to
man, all the Objects of the Theosophical Society are alike futile, because impossible of
attainment. Considered from the basis of the ordinary man those Objects are equally
useless or unsatisfactory, because they all imply and require the giving up of objects and
possessions counted valuable; at best in exchange for something remote and intangible,
yielding no personal or selfish benefit; at worst the loss of what one holds dear without
any return but failure.

Here, then, the Preface predicates the true and enduring foundation for the seeker's
faith and efforts. The philosophy of the Adepts is given:

"They showed us that by combining science with religion, the existence of God and
immortality of man's spirit may be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first
time we re-

--- 47

ceived the assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no other faith than an
absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence of man's own immortal self. We were taught
that this omnipotence comes from the kinship of man's spirit with the Universal Soul -
God! The latter, they said, can never be demonstrated but by the former. Man-spirit proves
God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a source from whence it must have come. Ex
nihilo nihil fit; prove the soul of man by its wondrous powers - you have proved
God!"

Every attempt to establish a religion on the fundamental conception that man is
inherently fallible and sinful, every attempt to understand Nature on the theory that man
is inherently mortal and finite, must end in failure. But once the stand is taken that
there is an immortal self in man, its limitless potentialities for knowledge and
power (true religion and true science) follow; the Three Objects of H.P. Blavatsky seem no
longer a vain attempt at hitching of the earthly wagon to the firmamental lights; a
nucleus of Universal Brotherhood becomes the one thing to be striven for, because seen to
be eternally possible and eternally desirable; the immortal is substituted for the mortal
as basis and as structure, as object and as subject.

The fact of Adepts grasped, the fact of the Wisdom-Religion recognized, he only is in
any real sense a Fellow of the real Theosophical Society who sets out to perform the work
of clearance standing in the way of his own realization of both. By the study of the
Wisdom-Religion of these Elder Brothers says H.P.B., "science, theology, every human
hypothesis and conception born of imperfect knowledge, lost forever their authoritative
character" in her sight. The same result must take place in the student, else the
Second and Third Objects of the Society have been misconstrued in their purpose, will fail
of their mission with him, and the First Object be as far off as ever from realization by
him. Unless this position

--- 48

is assumed it will remain hidden from him, as she says it always has been hidden,
"from those who overlooked it, derided it, or denied its existence."
Encouragement is offered to prosecute the search and the effort, and the explanation made
of her mission at this time in the words, "the day of domineering over men with
dogmas has reached its gloaming. The drift of modern thought is palpably in the direction
of liberalism in religion as well as in science. Each day brings the reactionists nearer
to the point where they must surrender the despotic authority over the public conscience,
which they have so long exercised and enjoyed."

Nevertheless, she well realized that all the forces of reaction, within as well as
without the Society, would fight to the death against the hearing and the spread of the
ideas she came to impart. So she says, prophetic at the time, facts of history now:

"To show that we do not at all conceal from ourselves the gravity of our
undertaking, we may say in advance that it would not be strange if the following classes
should array themselves against us:

"The Christians, who will see that we question the evidences of the genuineness of
their faith.

"The scientists, who will find their pretensions placed in the same bundle with
those of the Roman Catholic Church for infallibility, and, in certain particulars, the
sages and philosophers of the ancient world classed higher than they.

"Pseudo-scientists will, of course, denounce us furiously.

"Broad Churchmen and Freethinkers will find that we do not accept what they do,
but demand recognition of the whole truth.

"Men of letters and various authorities, who hide their real belief in
deference to popular prejudices.

"The mercenaries and parasites of the Press,

--- 49

who prostitute its more than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession, will find it
easy to mock at things too wonderful for them to understand; for to them the price of a
paragraph is more than the value of sincerity. From many will come honest criticism; from
many - cant. But we look to the future. We repeat again - we are laboring for the brighter
morrow."

Once a clear apprehension is gained of what is actually implied in the Three Objects of
the Theosophical Society, and of what is involved in the attempt to apply them, the
student will have no difficulty in determining how absolutely dependent the Society was
for its life and sustenance on the teachings imparted by H.P. Blavatsky, if it were not to
fail utterly as a vehicle of Brotherhood, whatever other success it might incidentally
achieve. The same understanding will make plain that external and internal difficulties
were inseparable from its every effort toward even a measurable and partial realization of
those objects.

The effect upon the Spiritualists has already been foreshadowed in a general way.
Convinced as they were of the reality of metaphysical phenomena; multitudinous,
conflicting and oftentimes grotesque as were the theories formulated or accepted to
account for them, the "forces of reaction," that is to say, of pre-conception
and bias, had already ascribed all these phenomena to the agency of "disembodied
human spirits." When, then, philosophical principles and logical deductions, as well
as the uninterrupted line of teaching of all the sages of the past, were applied to the
manifestations, and it was pointed out that they could not proceed from the rational moral
elements of once-living men, the Spiritualists almost without exception rose in arms. They
were all "looking for truth," but not in that direction.

One may soberly ask himself, after a careful study of "Isis Unveiled": What
is there in that work but the conscientious, painstaking and stupendous presentation of
facts, principles, arguments and analogies to explain con-

--- 50

sistently and irrefutably the source and rationale of the phenomena called
Spiritualistic? What is thereto arouse the opposition, the anger, the malevolence of
anyone, let alone one seeking truth "wherever it may be found" in regard to
mysterious and ill-explained happenings - happenings so recently brought to the attention
of mankind in the mass that the three parts of that mankind reject as absurd and
incredible the events themselves? Here is a metaphysical phenomenon worthy of the utmost
consideration: the rejection of evidence and testimony from verifiable living sources in
favor of the blind acceptance of unverifiable theories, speculations and
"communications" at variance with the whole order of Nature and the whole
history of human experience. Madame Blavatsky was assailed and pursued by Spiritualists
with a persistency of misrepresentation equaled only by that of the religionists and
pseudo-scientists of the day. Surely, if they had approached the seance room and the
medium in the same spirit that H.P.B.'s communications were received, they would,
according to their own unvarying experience, have received nothing at all; yet what she
had to say, when contrasted with the best that has ever been recorded from any
"spirit," was a thousand times more logical, more consistent, more
philosophical, more explanatory and more easily verifiable.

In the earlier years of the Society in the West the bulk of the opposition to its
teachings came from the Spiritualists. The teachings of H.P.B. were as yet so alien to
rooted inherited ideas in religion and science that her Society attracted but little
attention except among the Spiritualists and hence the weight of the opposition came from
the same quarter.

In India, where the conditions were altogether different, the obstacles arose from
another source. There, in spite of the rigid sects and castes, the religious faith and
philosophy of the people (apart from the Mohammedan element of the population), was deeply
akin to the message the Founders had to bring. For they but brought back to their source
the ancient teachings, stripped of their outward, human garments, the accretions of the
mil-

--- 51

lenniums of interpreters and priests. What they had to say appealed alike to Brahmin,
Buddhist, Jain and Parsi, once the barriers of creedal exclusiveness were passed. In the
earlier and precarious days the alliance hitherto formed by correspondence with the Swami,
Dayanand Saraswati, and his Arya Samaj, was of the utmost assistance in this respect. A
visit was made to Ceylon and there the Buddhist high priest, Sumangala, a noble and
enlightened man, received H.P.B. as a fellow devotee of the great founder of the Buddhist
faith. He admitted Col. Olcott to membership in the Buddhist congregation and was at pains
to favor their mission. A couple of years later Col. Olcott's "Buddhist
Catechism" aided in producing a veritable revival of Buddhism and gained for him and
his Society the enduring friendship, not only of enlightened Buddhists, but of the other
faiths of the ancient East. Almost immediately after their arrival Col. Olcott began
lecturing throughout India, and his clear expositions, his great tact, his intuitive
understanding of and sympathy with the Oriental mind made the establishment of branches
phenomenally successful.

Damodar K. Mavalankar, a native Brahmin youth of high caste, met H.P.B. and recognizing
in her his Guru, forsook family, fortune and all worldly prospects to become her
devoted follower, pupil and servant. The Theosophist was founded by H.P.B. within
less than a year after the arrival in India. Contributions were invited and obtained from
Hindu writers of ability and repute on the various subjects afforded by Eastern philosophy
and religion, and these, with H.P.B.'s own articles, soon made of the magazine a forum
which attracted attention far and wide. Shortly after the establishment of The
Theosophist, H.P.B. made the acquaintance of T. Subba Row, an orthodox Brahmin, a
lawyer, a man of ability, immense erudition and great influence. His friendship and
attachment to the Society paved the way for many accessions. His contributions to the
pages of The Theosophist were models of literary and philosophic excellence.

These activities quickly drew the notice and aroused

--- 52

the ire of the missionaries of the various Christian sects established in India. Almost
immediately rumors began to circulate that H.P.B. and Col. Olcott were disreputable
characters, practically forced into exile from their own land. A sinister purpose was
alleged to be behind their Society, and that purpose the overthrow of British rule in
India. H.P.B. was said to be an immoral woman, a Russian spy, and Col. Olcott her dupe and
her abettor. Nothing could have been better calculated to prejudice their mission, and
nothing could have been more difficult to counteract and disprove. The Government set a
watch upon their every movement and for months the spies of the secret service dogged
their every step. In the end, however, nothing of an objectionable nature was discovered,
and Col. Olcott was able to submit to the central authorities indubitable documentary
proof of the antecedent good character and repute of himself and his colleague.
Fortunately, also, within the first year, the Founders met Mr. A.P. Sinnett, editor of the
Allahabad Pioneer, a strong pro-Government organ, and Mr. Allan O. Hume, late
Secretary to the Government. Both of these gentlemen had been interested in spiritualistic
manifestations, and learning something of the nature of H.P.B. and the scope of her
teachings, became members of the Society and active in its behalf. They busied themselves
in removing all misconceptions as to the nature and purpose of the Theosophical Society,
the authorities became friendly, and the reaction speedily brought the Society to the
favorable attention of many well-known English residents.

Other stories were circulated that H.P.B. and Col. Olcott were "godless,"
atheists as well as "infidels," and their purpose equally to destroy the Hindu
religions as well as the Christian and make of India a land of materialism. The pages of The
Theosophist as well as its "Supplements" during the earlier years show how
unbrokenly and in what varied fashion the opposition to the Society and its teachings
continued. One device was the importation of the Rev. Joseph Cook, then a widely known
American clergyman and lecturer, who

--- 53

came to India ostensibly on a tour, but whose lectures were almost uniformly devoted to
such misrepresentations of Theosophy, the Society and its Founders as would have done
honor to a hired mercenary. He was repeatedly challenged to meet the Theosophists in
debate, but always avoided any such direct issue. Finally, he was publicly denounced in a
signed card published by a British army officer, and thereafter speedily departed the
country. A similar stratagem was employed in the case of the Rev. Moncure D. Conway, who,
while in India, visited the headquarters and was cordially received there by H.P.B. He
afterwards published articles in leading magazines of America and England in disparagement
of Theosophy and the work of the Society and declared that H.P.B. had admitted to him in
his interview with her that her phenomena were all "glamour," hence fraudulent.
Once or twice, in unguarded moments, the assailants of the Theosophists laid themselves
open to proceedings which enforced public retractions, but in general the assaults were
too cunningly made to permit of redress, or rebuttal. So much for the general course of
antagonism to the Society's progress.

The first serious ripple within the Society occurred when Dr. George Wyld, President of
the London Lodge, resigned his Fellowship and became extremely antagonistic. Dr. Wyld was
a well-known and highly educated man, a Christian and a Spiritualist. When he came to
learn that the teachings of H.P.B. were opposed to the theories of "spirit
communion," and to all ideas savoring of "personal God," he attacked her,
her "Masters" and her Theosophy with equal violence.

Dr. Anna Bonus Kingsford then became President of the British Society. Though she
remained friendly to H.P.B. and sympathetic toward the general Objects of the Theosophical
Society throughout her life, Dr. Kingsford had very pronounced ideas of her own. These are
embodied in her work, "The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ," originally
delivered as a series of lectures before a private audience during the summer of 1881, and
published in book form in 1882. A "psychic" and

--- 54

strongly colored with Christian mysticism, it appeared to Mrs. Kingsford that the
Society was devoting too much attention to purely oriental teachings, which she considered
to be more or less anti-Christian and tainted with a materialistic bias. Together with Mr.
E. Maitland (associated then as thereafter with her in her teachings), Dr. Kingsford
issued in 1883 a pamphlet "Letter to the Fellows of the London Lodge,"
containing a severe arraignment of some of the statements embodied in Mr. Sinnett's
"Esoteric Buddhism." A good deal of more or less acrimonious discussion followed
and finally, very early in 1884, T. Subba Row published, with the approval of Madame
Blavatsky, a pamphlet for private circulation among the Fellows. This pamphlet contained
some "Observations" on the various questions raised and in it Subba Row
discussed the general teachings outlined in "Esoteric Buddhism." He defended the
book as a whole, while admitting the justice of some of the criticisms, which he explained
by reciting Mr. Sinnett's unfamiliarity with the Occult tenets, and by correcting some of
Mr. Sinnett's erroneous deductions and expositions. To Subba Row's pamphlet in turn Mr.
C.C. Massey gave attention in a seventy-page booklet bearing the title, "The
Metaphysical Basis of Esoteric Buddhism." Mr. Massey's booklet was on the whole an
ably argued support of the position taken by Dr. Kingsford, and, in addition, embodied
some criticisms and complaints on his own account of Madame Blavatsky's policy. He charged
her with teaching, first one thing and then another on the same subject, and of
countenancing opposing views propounded by her pupils and followers. In due sequence,
also, Mrs. Kingsford and Mr. Maitland returned to the fray and published a
"Reply" to Subba Row, reiterating and further fortifying their earlier
criticisms and objections.

Mr. Massey's charges against H.P.B. really originated from an article in The
Theosophist. As early as June, 1882, she had published certain questions addressed to
her by "Caledonian Theosophist" on the apparent lack of consistency and
uniformity in some of the statements

--- 55

in "Isis Unveiled" as compared with later articles in The Theosophist
supposedly emanating from the same source. To these queries, published under the title of
"Seeming Discrepancies," H.P.B. had replied in an Editorial Note, closing her
explanation with the words "But there never was, nor can there be, any radical
discrepancy between the teachings in 'Isis' and those of this later period, as both
proceed from one and the same source - the ADEPT BROTHERS." In the English
Spiritualist publication Light, for July 8, 1882, "C.C.M." (C.C. Massey)
took up "seeming discrepancies" and more or less directly charged H.P.B. with
equivocation in her reply to "Caledonian Theosophist." He instanced that in
"Isis" the subject of Reincarnation was treated in a manner not reconcilable
with her later writings on the same topic. To this challenge H.P.B. replied in The
Theosophist for August, 1882, denying any contradictions in teachings, but stating
that much in "Isis" was preliminary only, therefore incomplete, but not in
actual conflict with anything subsequently given out. Various other articles appeared
thereafter in Light, in The Theosophist, and in other publications in
English and in French on this mooted subject of the Theosophical doctrines on
"reincarnation." Arguments, speculations, charges and counter-claims were
adduced by different writers, but H.P.B. held her peace. Not until 1886 did she break
silence on the much discussed passages in "Isis," Volume 1, pp. 346-51 et
circa. This will be considered in its proper sequence. (1)

Another fruitful occasion for external attack and internal disturbance arose out of the
publication of Mr. Sinnett's book, "The Occult World." This work contains
extracts from letters of the Master "K.H." to Mr. Sinnett and an unnamed friend
who was, in fact, Mr. A.O. Hume. In one of these letters the Master took occasion to refer
to Spiritualistic ideas and theories. In 1883 Mr. Henry Kiddle, highly reputable and
well-known American lecturer on Spiritualism, published in Light a communication in
which he claimed and proved that Mr.

----------------

(1) See Chapter IX.

--------------

--- 56

Sinnett's published extract was in large part made up of unacknowledged quotations from
an address of Mr. Kiddle 's delivered in the summer of 1880 (a year prior to the
publication of "The Occult World") before a Spiritualist camp meeting at Mount
Pleasant, New York. He published in "deadly parallel" the germane portions of
his address as printed at the time in several papers, and the quotations from the Master's
letter in "The Occult World." Mr. Kiddle's letter was, of course, very widely
copied in Spiritualist publications and the secular press, and numerous Spiritualists and
other commentators made merry over the discomfiture of the Theosophists. The vaunted
"Adepts," it seemed, were not above stooping to "borrow" without
credit from ordinary human exponents of doctrines these "Masters" professed to
consider erroneous and false. In many quarters the episode was quite sincerely believed to
be not only proof of plagiarism, but a complete exposure of H.P.B. and her pretended
Adepts. The existence of Masters and of a Wisdom-Religion was derided; they were ascribed
to the inventive imagination of Madame Blavatsky by some and by others called as much a
plagiarism from the ideas of Eliphas Levi as the "Master's letter" was a
plagiarism from Mr. Kiddle. The trust of the Theosophists in the good faith of H.P.B., in
the source of her teachings, and in her teachings, was considered to rest upon a basis
more unsubstantial and more discreditable than the belief of the Spiritualists in their
mediums, "guides" and "controls." Madame Blavatsky's phenomenal powers
were either laughed at as mere humbugging devices or ascribed to the same character as
mediumship. The defenders of the orthodox sects and the disbelievers in psychical
manifestations of any kind made haste to avail themselves of the ammunition provided by
Mr. Kiddle's "revelation," and used it with equal zeal to discredit both the
Theosophists and the Spiritualists. Much feeling grew up out of the "Kiddle
incident" and much of whatever amicable relations existed between the various
Spiritualist and Theosophical exponents was dissipated by it. In the Theosophical Society,
and among those

--- 57

friendly to it, a good deal of doubt sprang up, on the theory that where there was so
much smoke there must be some fire. H.P.B. remained silent as the proverbial sphinx, but
in time several cautiously worded articles appeared in The Theosophist and in other
friendly publications, from Subba Row and others, defending the bona fides of Mr.
Sinnett, of the Masters, and testifying from personal physical as well as psychical
relations with them to the actual existence of Adepts as living and perfected men, with
phenomenal powers over space, time and matter. Subba Row's article, in particular,
contained some guarded statements on the subject of the precipitation of Occult letters.
He also referred to the manifest discrepancies in the extracts published in "The
Occult World," as indicating that in the process of "precipitation" some
mistakes of omission or of commission had occurred. This article also was widely commented
on, and the explanations hinted at were accepted of course by Theosophists with relief, a
few others with reserve, but for the most part by antagonists with sarcastic comments on
the ex post facto nature of the explanations. Finally, in 1884, in the fourth
edition of "The Occult World," Mr. Sinnett added an Appendix containing the
Master's own reply to his letter of inquiry on the subject. The explanation given was
received by many as not only wholly satisfactory in itself, but as containing some most
valuable hints on Occult processes; by others as merely a further effort on the part of
the Theosophists to extricate themselves from an embarrassing situation. As the
"Kiddle incident" the matter has long since been forgotten or has never been
heard of by present-day students, but it has an important bearing on the "Coulomb
case," on the "Report" of the Society for Psychical Research, on the
charges made a decade later against Mr. Judge, and on the whole subject of the phenomena
of "precipitation," and the so-called "Occult letters." We shall treat
the matter more fully at a later period of the Theosophical Movement. (2)

The troubles over the Kiddle matter, the charges of

--------------

(2) See Chapters XXVI and XXX.

-------------

--- 58

contradictory teachings on the subject of "reincarnation," the disputes
existing in the London Lodge as a result of the broadsides of pamphlets on the
materialistic trend of "Esoteric Buddhism," all occurred contemporaneously and
were added to by sharp dissensions among the French Fellows. Practically all the members
of the Society in France were Spiritualists, and believers in "reincarnation"
and other subjects as developed by Allan Kardec. As the Theosophical teachings were at
variance, both in theory and practice, with the Kardec philosophy, the zeal of the
proponents of the respective views threatened to disrupt the Paris Lodge as well as the
British. These and other reasons impelled H.P.B. and Col. Olcott to make a visit to
Europe. They accordingly sailed from India early in 1884. The Paris difficulties were
first adjusted and a new impetus given both to the Society and the Movement. It was while
at Paris on this occasion that V.V. Solovyoff sought and made the acquaintance of H.P.B.,
became a Fellow of the Society and, for the time being, an assiduous worker and student.
Mr. Judge had come over from America to meet the Founders. He spent some time with H.P.B.
in France and then went on to India, returning to America via London, where he met Col.
Olcott again, late in the year. After their Paris stay H.P.B. and Col. Olcott proceeded to
London. Much time and effort were given to straightening out the difficulties in the
London and Paris Lodges, to meeting the Fellows of the Society, and in receptions to
inquirers. An immense interest was excited by the presence in England of H.P.B., and it
was at this time - the summer of 1884 - that the Society for Psychical Research began its
investigations of the Theosophical phenomena. To this we must now turn our attention.

The first serious modern attempt to investigate metaphysical
phenomena in a quasi-scientific spirit was that made by the London Dialectical Society. At
a meeting of the Council of that Society in January, 1869, a Committee was appointed
"to investigate the Phenomena alleged to be Spiritual Manifestations, and to report
thereon."

The Committee, composed of thirty-four well-known persons, passed nearly eighteen
months in its investigations. It held fifteen sittings of the full Committee, received
testimony from thirty-three persons who described phenomena occurring within their own
personal experience, and procured written statements from thirty-one others. The Committee
also appointed from its membership six subcommittees who undertook first-hand
investigations by experiments and tests. The Committee sent out letters inviting the
attendance, co-operation, and advice of scientific men who had expressed opinions,
favorable or adverse, on the genuineness of Spiritualistic phenomena.

On July 20, 1870, the full Committee rendered its unanimous Report to the Council, with
request for publication of the Report under the approval of the Society. The Council
received and filed the Report, discharged its Committee with a vote of thanks, but
declined to accede to the request for publication of the Report. In consequence the
Committee unanimously resolved to publish its Report on its own responsibility. Two
editions of the Report were printed to supply the demand for copies, and at the time
caused a very great discussion.

The Report is drawn with great conservatism. The

--- 60

statement of facts ascertained and conclusions reached by the Committee is, condensed,
as follows:

The Committee specially invited the attendance of persons who had publicly ascribed the
phenomena to imposture or delusion. On this the Report says:

"Your Committee, while successful in procuring the evidence of believers in the
phenomena and in their supernatural origin, almost wholly failed to obtain evidence from
those who attributed them to fraud or delusion. A large majority of the members of your
Committee have become actual witnesses to several phases of the phenomena without the aid
or presence of any professional medium, although the greater part of them commenced their
investigations in an avowedly sceptical spirit."

The Committee recites that the reports of the several subcommittees "substantially
corroborate each other." The Report concludes:

"Your Committee, taking into consideration the high character and great
intelligence of many of the witnesses to the more extraordinary facts, the extent to which
their testimony is supported by the reports of the subcommittees, and the absence of any
proof of imposture or delusion as regards a large portion of the phenomena, the large
number of persons in every grade of society and over the whole civilized world who are
more or less influenced by a belief in their supernatural origin, and the fact that no
philosophical explanation of them has yet been arrived at, deem it incumbent upon them to
state their conviction that the subject is worthy of more serious attention and careful
investigation than it has hitherto received."

It has been fifty years since the above Report was issued. In that period unnumbered
thousands have re-

--- 61

peated the investigations of "the phenomena alleged to be spiritual
manifestations," great numbers of books have been issued, arguments and theories pro
and con have been multiplied, but no advance whatever in actual knowledge has been gained.
It remains today, as it remained then, that "no philosophical explanation of them
has been arrived at" outside the propositions advanced by H.P. Blavatsky in
"Isis Unveiled."

Viewing the moderation, the accuracy and the dispassionateness of the Committee's
report of facts ascertained and conclusions reached, it should be of interest to the
student of human nature in the light of the teachings of Theosophy, to observe the
reception accorded the Report of the Committee by the moulders of public opinion in press
and science. The London Times called the Report "a farrago of impotent
conclusions, garnished by a mass of the most monstrous rubbish it has ever been our
misfortune to sit in judgment upon." The Pall Mall Gazette declared, "It
is difficult to speak or think with anything else than contemptuous pain of proceedings
such as are described in this report." The London Standard commented, with
unconscious verisimilitude, as follows: "If there is anything whatever in it beyond
imposture and imbecility, there is the whole of another world in it." The Morning
Post swept the whole matter aside in one contemptuous sentence: "The Report which
has been published is entirely worthless." The Saturday Review pronounced the
subject "one of the most unequivocally degrading superstitions that have ever found
currency among reasonable beings." The reviewer of the Sporting Times made
these dispassionate remarks: "If I had my way, a few of the leading professional
spiritualists should be sent as rogues and vagabonds to the treadmill for a few weeks. It
would do them good. They are a canting, deceiving, mischievous lot. Some of their dupes
are contemptibly stupid - insane, I should say." Professor Huxley, who had spoken
slightingly of the manifestations, wrote, in reply to the Committee's invitation to
participate: "It would be little short of madness for me to undertake an
investigation of so deli-

--- 62

cate and difficult a character, the only certain result of which would be an
interminable series of attacks from the side from which I might chance to differ. I hope
that I am perfectly open to conviction on this or any other subject; but I must frankly
confess to you that it does not interest me." Professor Tyndall's attitude is
indicated by this quotation from his "Fragments of Science": "The world
will have a religion of some kind, even though it should fly for it to the intellectual
whoredom of Spiritualism."

While the Dialectical Society Committee was engaged in its investigation, Prof. William
Crookes, later to become the most notable scientist of his generation but then just
beginning to attract the attention of the Fellows of the Royal Society, had determined on
his own account to study the phenomena privately. His bold and unqualified statements of
the results achieved, his cautious discussion of the many theories to account for the
phenomena he witnessed, were first printed in the numbers of the Quarterly Journal of
Science for 1870-2, and published in book form in 1874, with the title,
"Researches into the Phenomena of Spiritualism." His researches were undertaken
in a truly scientific spirit, in the public interest, and his results described with a
sincerity, a courage and candor that in any other field would have received, as they
merited, the highest commendation. But upon his head, as in the case of Darwin, was heaped
every abuse, and against his scientific repute every calumny was spread, that could be
devised by the reactionists of religion and science.

In 1875 was published "The Unseen Universe," an attempt primarily to
reconcile the Darwinian theory with the tenet of a "revealed religion," and
containing a discussion of ancient religions, Spiritualism, and immortality in relation to
the phenomena of the visible universe. In less than a year the work passed through four
editions. Numerous other books and continuous discussion in the press throughout the
period from 1870-80 marked the steady increase of interest in metaphysical phenomena, and
betokened the growing unrest of the genera-

--- 63

tion. The formation of the Theosophical Society and its rapid progress was like a Gulf
stream in the vast ocean of public discussion. The teachings embodied in "Isis
Unveiled" and The Theosophist and put in popular form in "The Occult
World" and "Esoteric Buddhism" might be likened to the sudden upheaval of a
new land in the midst of that ocean, offering its compelling attraction to adventurous
explorers.

It was in such circumstances that the Society for Psychical Research was established
early in 1882 by a number of well-known persons, among them Prof. F.W.H. Myers, Mr. W.
Stainton Moses (M.A. Oxon), and Mr. C.C. Massey, all members of the London Lodge of the
Theosophical Society. The preliminary announcement of the new Society declared that
"the present is an opportune time for making an organized and systematic attempt to
investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric,
psychical, and Spiritualistic." Committees were to be appointed to investigate and
report upon such subjects as telepathy, hypnotism, trance, clairvoyance, sensitives,
apparitions, etc. The announcement stated that "the aim of the Society will be to
approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the
same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve so many
problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated."

With such a broad and just prospectus and such an inviting field for its efforts, the
new Society almost immediately attracted to its Fellowship some hundreds of men and women
of reputation and ability in their several fields. By 1884 the Society had made numerous
investigations, had begun the publication of the voluminous reports of its Proceedings,
and was firmly established in the public confidence as a serious scientific body engaged
in the methodical and unbiased investigation of the disputed phenomena.

Meantime Mr. Sinnett had removed to London, his published books had been read by
thousands, he had been elected Vice-President of the London Lodge, and was

--- 64

the center and inspiration of eager investigations and experiments in the line of the
Third Object of the Theosophical Society. Rumors and circumstantial stories were afloat
regarding "astral appearances," "Occult letters" and other phenomena
connected with the mysterious "Brothers" supposed to be the invisible directors
behind the Theosophical activities. When Col. Olcott arrived in London early in the summer
of 1884, followed a little later by H.P.B., interest rose to a genuine excitement. This
excitement, coupled with the fact that a number of members of the Society for Psychical
Research were also Fellows of the Theosophical Society, made it natural and plausible for
the S.P.R. to turn its attention to the new and inviting possibilities at hand.
Accordingly, on May 2, 1884, the Council of the S.P.R. appointed a "Committee for the
purpose of taking such evidence as to the alleged phenomena connected with the
Theosophical Society as might be offered by members of that body at the time in England,
or as could be collected elsewhere." Out of this beginning grew the famous
"exposure" that for a time threatened the rain of the Theosophical Society.

The S.P.R. Committee as originally constituted consisted of Profs. E. Gurney, F.W.H.
Myers, F. Podmore, and J.H. Stack. To these were subsequently added Prof. H. Sidgwick,
Mrs. Sidgwick, and Mr. Richard Hodgson, a young University graduate.

The Committee held meetings on May 11 and 27 at which Col. Olcott was present and
replied to numerous questions, narrating the details of various phenomena of which he had
been witness during the years of his connection with H.P.B. Mohini M. Chatterji, a young
Hindu who had accompanied the Founders from India, was questioned on June 10. On June 13
Mr. Sinnett repeated to the Committee his observations on the phenomena described in his
"Occult World." During the summer the meetings of the Cambridge Branch of the
S.P.R. were attended on several occasions, by invitation, by Col. Olcott, Chatterji, and
Madame Blavatsky. On these occasions, says the preliminary Report, "the

--- 65

visitors permitted themselves to be questioned on many topics." Additional
evidences were obtained by the Committee from many sources, testifying to a wide range and
variety of phenomena through the preceding ten years, in America and Europe as well as in
India. All the witnesses were persons of repute and some of them well known in England and
on the Continent. In the autumn of 1884 the Committee published "for private and
confidential use" the "first report of the Committee." This Report, now
very rare, is a pamphlet of 130 pages. The first thirty-three pages are devoted to the
formal recital of the basis and nature of the investigations made, the Committee's
comments on the various questions raised, the conclusions tentatively arrived at, and two
notes, one relating to the Coulombs and the other, by Prof. Myers, giving a brief digest
of the Theosophical views and explanations of the phenomena enquired into. The remaining
ninety-seven pages consist of XLII Appendices, giving the substance of the evidence
obtained from the many witnesses.

The phenomena investigated by the Committee were chiefly: (1) "astral
appearances" of living men; (2) the transportation by "Occult" means of
physical substances; (3) the "precipitation" of letters and other messages; (4)
"Occult" sounds and voices. The appendices contain the details of numerous
occurrences of the kinds indicated, the sources of the testimony and the names of the
scores of witnesses, with comments of the Committee on the character and validity of the
testimony as to its sufficiency and bearing, and not upon the good faith of the witnesses
themselves, all of whom are regarded as reputable. In the earlier portion of the Report
the Committee says that in considering evidences of abnormal occurrences it "has has
altogether declined to accept the evidence of a paid medium as to any abnormal
event." It goes on to say, "in dealing with these matters, it is admitted that
special stringency is necessary, and one obvious precaution lies in the exclusion of all
the commoner and baser motives to fraud or exaggeration." But with regard to the
Theosophical exponents it says,

--- 66

"we may say at once that no trustworthy evidence supporting such a view has been
brought to our notice."

Although the witnesses expressly state that the Theosophical phenomena are not of the
kind familiarly known as mediumistic, and although Madame Blavatsky expressly declined to
produce any phenomena for the consideration of the Committee as her purpose was to
promulgate certain doctrines, not to prove her possession of Occult powers, the
Committee's basis of treatment of the phenomena, and its theories to account for them,
were the familiar ones employed in Spiritualistic investigations. Nevertheless, the
Committee recognized that there were three points calling for the greatest care on its
part. The first of these is "that it is certain that fraud has been practiced by
persons connected with the Society." This refers to the charges brought by the
Coulombs, who were members of the Theosophical Society, against Madame Blavatsky; to the
"Kiddie incident," and to certain "evidence privately brought before us by
Mr. C.C. Massey." On this matter the Committee says that it suggests, "to the
Western mind at any rate, that no amount of caution can be excessive in dealing with
evidence of this kind."

The second point raised by the Committee is that "Theosophy appeals to Occult
persons and methods." Accustomed to dealing with mediums and mediumistic
manifestations, where the moral and philosophical factors have no bearing, accustomed to
believe that where there is reticence there must be fraud, the Committee does not like the
idea made plain at all times by H.P.B. that the subject of Occult phenomena, their
production and laws, will not be submitted to scientific exploitation, but will only be
made known to those who qualify themselves under the strictest pledges of secrecy and
discipleship.

Finally, the Committee recognizes that:

"Theosophy makes claims which, though avowedly based on occult science, do, in
fact,

--- 67

ultimately cover much more than a merely scientific field."

This, also, is not agreeable to the Committee, which remarks:

"The history of religions would have been written in vain if we still fancied that
a Judas or a Joe Smith was the only kind of apostle who needed watching.... Suspicions of
this kind are necessarily somewhat vague; but it is not our place to give them
definiteness. What we have to point out is that it is our duty, as investigators, in
examining the evidence for Theosophic marvels, to suppose the possibility of a deliberate
combination to deceive on the part of certain Theosophists. We cannot regard this
possibility as excluded by the fact that we find no reason to attribute to any of the
persons whose evidence we have to consider, any vulgar or sordid motive for such
combination."

These frank expressions of the Committee are illuminating as to its own basis and
motives, and equally illuminating when contrasted with the fair promises made in the
preliminary announcement of the formation of the S.P.R. They become still more clear when
viewed in the light of the Preface to "Isis Unveiled," with its statement in
advance of the kind of opposition its author would be called upon to face.

In spite of its suspicions, its doubts, its fears, its mental reservations occasioned
by its own ignorance of the laws governing metaphysical phenomena; by the absolute refusal
of H.P.B. to disclose the processes of practical Occultism; by the atmosphere of mystery
surrounding the whole subject of the hidden "Brothers" and their powers; by the
charges of fraud laid by the Coulombs at the door of H.P.B.; by the undisclosed
"evidence privately brought before us by Mr. C.C. Mas-

--- 68

sey " - in spite of all these disturbing equations, the testimony amassed by the
Committee was so absolutely overwhelming as to the fact of the alleged phenomena that the
Committee found itself compelled to make certain admissions, as follows:

"It is obvious that if we could account for all the phenomena described by the
mere assumption of clever conjuring on the part of Madame Blavatsky and the Coulombs,
assisted by any number of Hindu servants, we could hardly, under present circumstances,
regard ourselves as having adequate ground for further inquiry. But this assumption would
by no means meet the case. The statements of the Coulombs implicate no one in the alleged
fraud except Madame Blavatsky. The other Theosophists, according to them, are all dupes.
Now the evidence given in the Appendix in our opinion renders it impossible to avoid one
or other of two alternative conclusions: Either that some of the phenomena recorded are
genuine, or that other persons of good standing in society, and with characters to lose,
have taken part in deliberate imposture."

Accordingly, the Committee expressed the following conclusions:

"On the whole, however (though with some serious reserves), it seems undeniable
that there is a prima facie case, for some part at least of the claim made, which,
at the point which the investigations of the Society of Psychical Research have now
reached, cannot, with consistency, be ignored."

The Committee decided to send one of its members to India to investigate the charges
made by the Coulombs, to interview the numerous witnesses to phenomena testified to by
Hindus and Europeans in India, and report

--- 69

on the results of such examination. Mr. Richard Hodgson was the member chosen. His
report is the foundation and superstructure of the celebrated "exposure"
embodied in Volume 3 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Before
considering Mr. Hodgson's report, it is necessary to review the antecedent and surrounding
circumstances and events, the main features of which are wrapped up in the connection of
the Coulombs with the Theosophical Society.

In the year 1871, Madame Blavatsky was voyaging on a vessel which was wrecked by an
explosion. Along with other passengers she was landed in Egypt, destitute of money or
belongings. She made her way to Cairo and there met Madame Coulomb, an English woman then
unmarried and conducting a lodging house. Madame Coulomb was moved by the misfortunes and
distress of the wanderer, received her into her house, supplied her necessities and
advanced her funds until H.P.B. could communicate with her family.

Madame Coulomb was mediumistic, intensely interested in Spiritualism, and the more so
because she had but recently lost a brother with whom she was anxious to
"communicate." Finding that H.P.B. possessed a fund of lore and experience in
matters Occult, Madame Coulomb besought her to aid in procuring the longed-for
communications, as, from her experience, they could not consciously be obtained except
through another. Finding that others in Cairo were also interested in the mysterious
phenomena with which all the Western world was then dabbling in one way and another,
H.P.B. took advantage of the opportunity, and endeavored to form a Society for
investigation and experiment. It speedily developed that curiosity and the thirst for
phenomena, not the desire for philosophy and understanding, were at the bottom of all the
would-be investigators' zeal, and H.P.B. dropped the matter. The Society went to pieces as
soon as she did so. H.P.B. was in Egypt in all nearly a year, returning to Russia in 1872.
From there, in the spring of 1873, she went to Paris, and thence to New York, returning to
India early in 1879.

--- 70

Madame Coulomb married in Egypt. After a succession of misfortunes the Coulombs went to
India, and then to Ceylon. Their misfortunes pursued them and they were living in direst
penury when they heard of the arrival of H.P.B. and Col. Olcott in India and the interest
attendant upon their activities. Madame Coulomb at once wrote to H.P.B., recalling the
Cairo acquaintance, detailing her circumstances and asking for help. To this letter H.P.B.
replied with expressions of sympathy, but stating that she herself was in little better
plight personally than the Coulombs, and describing her mission and purposes in India.
Madame Coulomb wrote again avowing the interest of herself and husband in the Society, and
pleading for help. To this appeal H.P.B. answered that if the Coulombs so desired they
could come to headquarters and share such fortunes as might befall the Founders.
Accordingly, the Coulombs made their way to India, arriving early in 1880. They took the
pledges of membership and entered the Theosophical Society. During the ensuing four years
Madame Coulomb acted as housekeeper, and, as she was acquainted both with French and
Italian, and the labors were great and the workers few, she assisted in translations and
in foreign correspondence. M. Coulomb was made general utility man around the premises. He
acted as gardener, as carpenter, as librarian, and also assisted in some of the
correspondence. The Coulombs were made entirely free of the premises and the work at
headquarters. At first they professed the utmost gratitude for the succors given them, and
the liveliest interest and sympathy in the work of the Society. As affairs progressed,
they became acquainted with numerous visitors and inquirers, European and Hindu, at
headquarters. Dissatisfied and discontented with the comparatively insignificant and
menial role played by themselves, they felt that they were not receiving their just dues.
Greedy, weak by nature, and anxious to become financially independent, it appeared to them
that Madame Blavatsky was receiving an attention and prominence to which she was no more
entitled than themselves. In addition, the Coulombs were

--- 71

Christians of the narrowest kind, superstitious to a degree, and in fact wholly out of
sympathy and accord with the aims and teachings of the Founders.

Within a couple of years Madame Coulomb tried to extort or beg money from wealthy
persons interested in the Society, notably from the native prince, Harrisinji Rupsinji.
This coming to the knowledge of H.P.B., she reproved Madame Coulomb sternly. To others of
the visitors and residents at headquarters Madame Coulomb whispered tales of her own
powers and of her ability to find "hidden treasures." To others she intimated
that Madame Blavatsky's powers were from the "evil one." The Coulombs were more
or less constantly in communication with the establishments of the missionaries near by,
and Madame Coulomb, in particular, was in constant frictions and disputes over religious
matters and opinions with resident chelas and members of the Society. Col. Olcott took her
to task for these needless difficulties on several occasions. In general, however, the
Coulombs were looked upon as harmless meddlers, their misfortunes caused them to be viewed
with charity, and the known gratitude of H.P.B. for help received from Madame Coulomb at a
time of need reconciled the Theosophists to the annoyances and disturbances occasioned by
their presence and officiousness at headquarters.

Just prior to the departure of H.P.B. and Col. Olcott for Europe in February, 1884, a
Council was appointed to take charge of affairs at headquarters during the absence of the
Founders. Among the Council were Dr. Franz Hartmann, Mr. St. George Lane-Fox, and Mr. W.T.
Brown, with whom, particularly Dr. Hartmann and Mr. Lane-Fox, the Coulombs had been in
almost constant wrangles. These desired to dispense with the Coulombs altogether, but on
the prayers of Madame Coulomb H.P.B. permitted them to remain as hitherto, and, in order
to remove sources of disagreement as much as possible, gave the Coulombs
"authority" to do the housework, to have charge of the upkeep of the premises,
and to keep her own rooms in order.

--- 72

The Founders away, fresh fuel for the fires of discord was soon heaped on the ashes of
discontent. The Coulombs refused to accept any orders or obey any instructions from the
resident members of the Council; they refused all access to H.P.B.'s apartments and
declared that H.P.B. had placed them in independent control of her quarters and the
conduct of the household. On the other hand, the members of the Council living at
headquarters, having no liking for the Coulombs and distrusting them utterly were more or
less harsh and contemptuous towards them, communicating with them only by letter, and
refusing to eat with them, or to eat the food provided by Madame Coulomb. They charged
Madame Coulomb with extravagance, waste, and with personally profiting out of her handling
of the domestic funds, and set about auditing and checking her daily expenditures. Vain,
sensitive, and without doubt smarting under their grievances, real and imaginary, the
Coulombs planned revenge in dual fashion. They wrote to H.P.B., reciting their wrongs,
asserting their own loyalty and innocence of any wrong-doing, and making sundry charges
against the Council members. At the same time the Council members were also writing the
Founders their side of the disputes, and telling circumstantially the actions of the
Coulombs and the insinuations being whispered about by them against the good faith of the
Theosophists and H.P.B. While this war of charges and recriminations was going on by mail,
the Coulombs were busy fortifying themselves for their ultimate treachery by constructing
false doors and sliding panels in the so-called "Occult room" in H.P.B.'s
apartments so as to give such an appearance of mechanical contrivance as might support
charges of fraud in the phenomena taking place at headquarters. To our mind, after
weighing well all the circumstances of this unhappy period, there is no room for doubt
that the Coulombs were already in active conspiracy with the missionaries and were
carefully following able but sinister instructions in their course of conduct. By
temporizing with the resident members of the Council, by their written

--- 73

denials and protestations to H.P.B. and Col. Olcott, they were gaining the time needed
to perfect the mise en scene for their subsequent accusations.

Both H.P.B. and Col. Olcott wrote the Coulombs and the Council, endeavoring to patch up
the rancors and bitternesses engendered, and appealing to all for the sake of the Society
and its work, to exercise mutual forbearance and tolerance. But the evil forces at work
were too favored of circumstance. The Council members at last forced their way to the
quarters of H.P.B., discovered what had been going on there, talked severally with the
Coulombs, and summoned them before the meeting of the Council to answer charges of bad
faith, of treachery, of false stories about H.P.B. and the phenomena at headquarters. The
Coulombs neither affirmed nor denied the statements made in the several affidavits read
concerning their behavior, and declining to produce any evidence to support their
allegations, were expelled from the Society and ordered to leave the premises. Legal
proceedings were then threatened to eject them, and in the wrangling St. George Lane-Fox
struck M. Coulomb, who had him arrested and fined for assault and battery. The Coulombs
offered, during the disputes and negotiations, to leave the country and go to America if
paid 3,000 rupees and given their passage. This was refused. Finally, on the direct
approval of H.P.B., to whom both the Coulombs and the Council members had appealed, and
after the Coulombs had threatened to her that if she did not support them in their
contentions they would expose her, the Coulombs were compelled to leave the premises. This
took place at the end of May, 1884.

The Coulombs went at once to the missionaries by whom they were received with open
arms. They were given money and their living was provided them. In the ensuing three
months the plans of battle were perfected for the assault which it was hoped would once
and for all destroy the reputation of H.P.B., and in the ruin of her good repute, ruin the
Theosophical Society. In the September and succeeding issues of the, Christian College
Magazine were published with extended comments a

--- 74

series of letters purporting to have been written by H.P.B. to Madame Coulomb which, if
genuine, showed H.P.B. to have been a conscienceless and heartless swindler, her phenomena
plain frauds, her Society a collection of dupes, her Masters a mere invention, her
teachings a myth of the imagination.

The facts, so far as publicly disclosed, may be found as represented by the various
interests involved, in the Christian College Magazine articles entitled "The
Collapse of Koot Hoomi"; in Madame Coulomb's pamphlet issued at the time in India and
republished in London by Elliott Stock "for the proprietors of the Madras Christian
College Magazine," under the title "Some Account of My Intercourse with Madame
Blavatsky from 1872 to 1884, by Madame Coulomb"; in Dr. Franz Hartmann's pamphlet,
"Observations During a Nine Months' Stay at the Headquarters of the Theosophical
Society, Madras, India," published in the fall of 1884; in the "Report of the
Result of an Investigation into the Charges against Madame Blavatsky," by the
Committee of the Indian Convention; in the Report of the Indian Convention of the
Theosophists held at the close of December, 1884; in Mr. Sinnett's book, "Incidents
in the Life of H.P. Blavatsky"; in Col. Olcott's "Old Diary Leaves," and in
numerous articles pro and con at the time and during succeeding years in many
Theosophical, Spiritualist, Christian, and secular publications. The facts as herein given
are those derived from the immense accumulation of literature on the subject, after the
most careful and painstaking comparison and weighing.

We may now consider the effect of the Coulomb disclosures and the missionary use of
them, both on the Theosophists and on the Society for Psychical Research.

The Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Society for
Psychical Research was drawn up in the midst of the excitement occasioned by the Coulomb
accusations and the missionary attacks in the Christian College Magazine of Madras,
India.

Immediately the charges were cabled to England Madame Blavatsky took steps to protect
the good name of the Theosophical Society. On September 27, 1884, she handed to Col.
Olcott as President her resignation as Corresponding Secretary, but under pressure from
leading members of the Society in England Col. Olcott refused to accept her withdrawal. At
the same time H.P.B. addressed a letter to the London Times which was published in
that paper in its issue of October 9.

The letter follows:

"Sir, - With reference to the alleged exposure at Madras of a dishonourable
conspiracy between myself and two persons of the name of Coulomb to deceive the public
with occult phenomena, I have to say that the letters purporting to have been written by
me are certainly not mine. Sentences here and there I recognise, taken from old notes of
mine on different matters, but they are mingled with interpolations that entirely pervert
their meaning. With these exceptions the whole of the letters are a fabrication.

"The fabricators must have been grossly ignorant of Indian affairs, since they
make me speak of a "Maharajah of Lahore," when every

--- 76

Indian schoolboy knows that no such person exists.

With regard to the suggestion that I attempted to promote the "financial
prosperity" of the Theosophical Society by means of occult phenomena, I say that I
have never at any time received, or attempted to obtain, from any person any money either
for myself or for the Society by any such means. I defy anyone to come forward and prove
the contrary. Such money as I have received has been earned by literary work of my own,
and these earnings, and what remained of my inherited property when I went to India, have
been devoted to the Theosophical Society. I am a poorer woman to-day than I was when, with
others, I founded the Society. - Your obedient Servant,

H.P. Blavatsky "

On October 23, the Pall Mall Gazette published a long interview with H.P.B. in
which her denial of the authorship of the letters attributed to her by the Coulombs is
reiterated, the facts of the Coulombs' bad faith given and attention called to the further
fact that two letters attributed by the Coulombs to Gen. Morgan and Mr. Bassoon had
already been conclusively proved to be forgeries.

On the opposing side the attack was pressed with vigor and all possible capital made of
the Coulomb accusations, with, of course, a renewal of every old and exploded charge
against H.P.B., her teachings, and her Society. The Christian sects, the Spiritualist
publications, the space writers in the daily press to whom any sensation was so much
material for "copy," regardless of the merits of the case, all joined in the
fray.

Immediate preparations were made by the Founders to return to India. Colonel Olcott
arrived at headquarters in November. H.P.B. stopped off in Egypt to obtain information in
regard to the Coulombs and did not reach India till December. On her arrival she was

--- 77

met and presented with an Address signed by some three hundred of the native students
of the Christian College, expressing gratitude for what she had done for India, and
disclaiming any part or sympathy in the attacks of the Christian College Magazine.

The Convention of the Society in India met at headquarters near the end of December.
From the first H.P.B. had insisted that the Coulombs and the proprietors of the Christian
College Magazine must be met in Court by legal proceedings for libel. The future of
the Society, the bona fides of her teachings, she declared were wrapped up in the
assaults made upon her own reputation, and if her good name were destroyed both the
Society and Theosophy would suffer irreparable injury. For herself, she avowed, she cared
nothing personally, but the fierce onset was in reality directed against her work, and
that work could not be separated in the public mind from herself as its leading exponent.
To destroy the one was to inflict disaster on the other.

Colonel Olcott was between Scylla and Charybdis, both in himself and in relation to the
Society to which he was wholly devoted. His close and long personal friendship and
spiritualistic relations with Mr. W. Stainton Moses and Mr. C.C. Massey, both of whom
believed that H.P.B. had been the agency both for genuine and spurious phenomena,
undoubtedly affected him powerfully. His relations with Mr. Sinnett were concordant in
Theosophical views, and he knew that Mr. Sinnett had similar ideas to his own regarding
the nature of H.P.B. On his return to India he found that Mr. A.O. Hume, formerly a
responsible Government official and, next to Mr. Sinnett, the most influential friend of
the Society in India, had become infected with doubts and suspicions and believed that,
while some of H.P.B.'s phenomena were undoubtedly genuine, others had been produced by
collusion with the Coulombs. Colonel Olcott speedily found, also, that the more prominent
Hindu members of the Society, while willing to speak politely in favor of H.P.B., were a
unit in opposition to legal proceedings in which religious convictions and subjects sacred
to

--- 78

them would be dragged in the mire of merciless treatment by the defendants' attorneys
in an alien Court. On every hand he was urged to consider that psychical powers and
principles could be proved only by actual production of phenomena in Court - a thing
forbidden alike by their religious training and the rules of Occultism. Others argued that
a judgment, even if obtained, would be valueless before the world, since the mischief was
already done; those who believed the phenomena fraudulent would still think so, judgment
or no judgment; those who believed them genuine would continue to hold that view if the
matter were allowed to drop; while an adverse judgment would forever brand H.P.B. and
destroy the Society beyond any hope of resuscitation.

But H.P.B. stood firm for legal prosecution of the defamers, declaring her faith in
Masters and her own innocence; that They would not countenance disloyalty and ingratitude,
and that, if worst came to worst, it were better for the Theosophists to be destroyed
fighting for what they held to be true than to live on by an inglorious and ignominious
evasion of the issues raised. Torn by his fears and doubts, Col. Olcott took what was
doubtless to him the only possible road. He proposed a compromise which was in effect a
betrayal; he demanded that H.P.B. place the matter in the hands of the Convention and
abide by its decision; threatening, if this were not done, that he himself and the others
with him would abandon the Society and leave it to its fate. H.P.B. acceded to the demand
made. Accordingly, at the Convention a Committee was appointed, and this Committee
unanimously reported as follows:

"Resolved - That the letters published in the Christian College Magazine
under the heading 'Collapse of Koot Hoomi' are only a pretext to injure the cause of
Theosophy; and as these letters necessarily appear absurd to those who are acquainted with
our philosophy and facts, and as those who are not acquainted with those facts could not
have their opinion changed, even by a

--- 79

judicial verdict given in favour of Madame Blavatsky, therefore it is the unanimous
opinion of this Committee that Madame Blavatsky should not prosecute her defamers in a
Court of Law."

The report of the Committee was unanimously adopted by the Convention. This action was
received by the Indian press and that wedded to sectarian interests with prolonged jeers
and contumely leveled against H.P.B., her followers and her Society. By the great majority
of public journals and intelligent minds it was considered to be the tacit admission by
Theosophists that the Coulomb charges were true.

The blow was well-nigh mortal to the body of H.P.B. Defenseless and undefended, her
life was despaired of by her physician. During the succeeding three months she was rarely
able to leave her bed. Finally, toward the end of March, yielding to the solicitations of
the few who still remained devotedly loyal to her, she prepared to leave India and go to
Europe. On the 21st of March she addressed a formal letter to the General Council, once
more tendering her resignation as Corresponding Secretary, and closing her communication
with these words:

"I leave with you, one and all, and to every one of my friends and sympathizers,
my loving farewell. Should this be my last word, I would implore you all, as you have
regard for the welfare of mankind and your own Karma, to be true to the Society and not to
permit it to be overthrown by the enemy. Fraternally and ever yours - in life or death.

H.P. Blavatsky"

Her resignation was accepted by the Council with fulsome compliments, even as the
cowardly action of the Convention and its Committee had been accompanied with brave words.

Mr. Richard Hodgson, chosen by the Society for Psy-

--- 80

chical Research to continue in India the investigations begun in England, arrived at
headquarters in December, passed three months in pursuing his inquiries and returned to
England in April, 1885. He was, therefore, present in India during all the typhoons of
fierce attack and all the period of wavering defense. He witnessed the bold confidence of
the accusers and observed the timid, the cautious, the doubting and fearing attitude and
actions of Col. Olcott and other leading Theosophists. Had there been no other influence
at work upon his mind, these alone, we think, would have been more than ample to persuade
him that Theosophy, the Theosophical Society, the "Adept Brothers" and their
teachings were, with the phenomena of H.P.B., nothing but a vast fraud devised and
perpetrated for some secret purpose.

Mr. Hodgson's report of his investigations was submitted to the Committee of the
S.P.R., by them endorsed, and at the General Meeting of the Society on June 24, 1885,
Prof. Sidgwick of the Committee read its Conclusions. Certain difficulties developing, the
ensuing six months were spent by Mr. Hodgson in revising and revamping his report. In the
interval it became common knowledge that the report of the Committee and the S.P.R. would
be entirely adverse to the Theosophical phenomena. As in the Coulomb case, the machinery
of assault was prepared in secrecy and silence. No opportunity was given the Theosophists
to inspect Mr. Hodgson's report, no chance offered for correction, criticism, objection,
or counter-statement, while during all the long interval the most injurious damage was
being inflicted through the public knowledge of what the findings would be, and while the
Theosophists could only await the production of charges of whose essential nature they
knew nothing and to which, therefore, no reply was possible.

The Conclusions of the Committee - and the full text of Mr. Hodgson's report were
finally embodied in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Volume 3, pp. 201-400, issued in
December, 1885.

--- 81

The essential conclusions of the Committee are embodied in the following extracts:

"After carefully weighing all the evidence before them, the Committee unanimously
arrived at the following conclusions:

"(1) That of the letters put forward by Madame Coulomb, all those, at least, which
the Committee have had the opportunity of themselves examining, and of submitting to the
judgment of experts, are undoubtedly written by Madame Blavatsky; and suffice to prove
that she has been engaged in a long-continued combination with other persons to produce by
ordinary means a series of apparent marvels for the support of the Theosophic movement.

"(2) That, in particular, the Shrine at Adyar, through which letters, purporting
to come from Mahatmas were received, was elaborately arranged with a view to the secret
insertion of letters and other objects through a sliding panel at the back, and regularly
used for this purpose by Madame Blavatsky or her agents.

"(3) That there is in consequence a very strong general presumption that all the
marvelous narratives put forward as evidence of the existence and occult power of the
Mahatmas are to be explained as due either (a) to deliberate deception carried out by or
at the instigation of Madame Blavatsky, or (b) to spontaneous illusion, or hallucination,
or unconscious misrepresentation or invention on the part of the witnesses.

"(4) That after examining Mr. Hodgson's report of the results of his personal
inquiries, they are of the opinion that the testimony to these marvels is in no case
sufficient, taking amount and character together, to resist the force of the general
presumption above mentioned.

--- 82

"Accordingly, they think it would be a waste of time to prolong the
investigation."

With reference to Madame Blavatsky herself, the Committee say:

"For our own part, we regard her neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers, nor as
a mere vulgar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent remembrance
as one of the most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting impostors in history."

The preliminary and final reports of the Committee should be taken together. The former
is to be found only in private collections and a few large libraries, but the Proceedings
of the Society for Psychical Research, Volume 3, may be consulted in nearly every
library of any consequence in England and America. Every student of Theosophical history
ought to read, digest and collate this report for himself. Such a careful and firsthand
examination and comparison will prove to him as nothing else can the monstrous injustice
and infamy of the S.P.R. investigation and report.

Miscarriages of justice are frequent even in controversies involving only ordinary
physical events, and where surrounded and safeguarded by all the jurisprudence, principles
and practice embodying the accumulated experience of the race in the determination of moot
and disputed issues. How much greater, then, the risk of mistaken or false judgment in
cases not so protected, and where the issues to be decided not only do not lie within the
general experience of the race, but by most men are believed to be impossible and
therefore incredible; where the very facts themselves to be investigated, as well as the
laws and principles by virtue of which alone their possibility can be assumed, lie outside
the knowledge or experience of the investigators themselves; and where it is recognized
that the admission or establishment of these laws, principles, and phenomena will work

--- 83

a revolution in every department of human thought and action. Bearing these
considerations and the concomitant circumstances in mind the real facts and the real
issues may be understood from a study of the reports of the Society for Psychical Research
alone.

In the first place, the investigation was entirely ex parte. The Committee laid
out its own course of procedure, determined its own basis, admitted what it chose,
rejected what it chose, reported what it chose of the evidence - subject to no
supervision, no correction, no safeguards to insure impartiality, or afford redress if
bias were exercised. Of its own motion and decision it constituted itself court, judge,
and jury; at its pleasure it finally took upon itself the role of prosecutor without
allowing or permitting to those it thus constituted defendants to its proceedings any
right of cross-examination or rebuttal. That which began ostensibly as a mere inquiry into
the evidences available concerning the Theosophical phenomena degenerated into a criminal
prosecution, in which a verdict of "guilty" was pronounced upon H.P. Blavatsky -
without a hearing, without appeal, without recourse for the victim. Had the Committee been
a duly and legally constituted Court, its procedure would have been without a parallel in
English history save in the "bloody assizes" of the infamous Jeffreys.

But in fact the Committee was that of a rival society whose objects, methods, and
purposes were diametrically opposed to the objects and principles proclaimed by H.P.
Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society for ten years preceding the investigation. The
Society for Psychical Research was interested in phenomena solely and only as phenomena;
was moved by mere scientific curiosity. It specifically disclaimed any interest in
philosophical research, any concern in Occult laws, any regard for the moral factor, in
its equations. The Theosophical Society and H.P.B., on the contrary, specifically avowed
the primary Object of its existence was the moral factor of Universal Brotherhood, its
second Object the serious study and comparison of religions and

--- 84

philosophies, and its third object the investigation of laws and powers as yet
unexplained and misunderstood; not phenomena at all, save as these might be incidental and
illustrative.

These differences were recognized by the Committee. The preliminary report says:

"The difference between The Theosophical Society and the Society for Psychical
Research is... almost diametrical. The Society for Psychical Research exists merely as a
machinery for investigation.... The Theosophical Society exists mainly to promulgate
certain doctrines already formulated, those doctrines being supported by phenomena which
are avowedly intended and adapted rather for the influencing of individual minds than for
the wholesale instruction of the scientific world."

What the Committee's attitude was in regard to the moral factor, and its attitude
toward the "certain doctrines already formulated" for the promulgation of which
the Theosophical Society "mainly exists" are shown by its own reports. In the
preliminary report the statement is made, "The Theosophical Society was founded...
for certain philanthropic and literary purposes, with which we are not now
concerned." In the final report the statement is made: "The Theosophical Society
was founded ostensibly for certain philanthropic and literary purposes... with
these doctrines (or so-called 'Wisdom-Religion') the Committee have, of course, no
concern." ,

It should be understood in connection with the use of the word "ostensibly"
above that not a shred of evidence is introduced or claimed to be introduced that the
Theosophical Society ever had any other objects than its proclaimed ones.

The Committee took enough note of the Theosophical doctrines to recognize at the
beginning their enormous import:

--- 85

"The teaching... comprises a cosmogony, a philosophy, a religion. With the value
of this teaching per se we are not at present concerned. But it is obvious that
were it widely accepted a great change would be induced in human thought in almost every
department. To take one point only, the spiritual and intellectual relationship of East to
West would be for the time in great measure reversed. 'Ex Oriente Lux' would be
more than a metaphor and a memory; it would be the expression of actual contemporary Fact."

Why was the Committee "not concerned in the value of this teaching?" Was it
because the West or the Committee already possessed abundant knowledge as to the existence
of superphysical phenomena and the laws and processes by which such phenomena are
produced? Here is what was proclaimed in the prospectus of the S.P.R. in 1882:

The founders of this Society fully recognize the exceptional difficulties which
surround this branch of research; but they nevertheless hope that by patient and
systematic effort some results of permanent value may be attained."

And the Committee itself admits in the preliminary report that the evidence for these
phenomena "is of a kind which it is peculiarly difficult to disentangle or to
evaluate. The claims advanced are so enormous, and the lines of testimony converge and
inosculate in a manner so perplexing that it is almost equally hard to say what statements
are to be accepted, and what inferences as to other statements are to be drawn from the
acceptance of any."

To have concerned itself seriously with Madame Blavatsky's teachings, to have
investigated and studied the principles and processes she inculcated would have called for
a self-sacrificing devotion that no member of the

--- 86

Committee had any zest for. There was advertising value in "investigating"
H.P.B. and her phenomena; immediate and safe profit and advantage in arguing such opinions
and speculations as accorded with their own preconceptions and theories and not in direct
opposition to the "cosmogony, philosophy and religion" of the times, nor counter
to prevailing ideas of the complete superiority of "the spiritual and intellectual
relationship" of the West to the East. The Committee had no appetite in a direction
that might result in making "ex oriente lux" something more than "a
metaphor and a memory." What other rational inferences can be drawn from the
Committee's own statements?

Realizing that the whole investigation was ex parte, and a farce as well,
because it refused to enter into any study of the stated principles under which the
phenomena were possible, the next question is concerned with the competency of the
Committee to inquire into the Theosophical phenomena or weigh the value of the
evidence amassed.

The whole history of Spiritualistic and allied phenomena without exception shows that
the occurrences are involuntary on the part of the medium, both as regards their
production and control, and that their rationale and processes are not understood either
by mediums or investigators. On the other hand, absolutely every iota of evidence amassed
by the Committee shows that the Theosophical phenomena were voluntary, that is,
consciously produced and consciously controlled by the operators, and those operators
themselves claimed that the explanation of laws and processes could be acquired only
through the Theosophical teachings. Nevertheless, the Committee and Mr. Hodgson
steadfastly took the position that the Theosophical phenomena were of the same character
as Spiritualistic manifestations, and were to be approached in the same way. Although the
phenomena were admittedly metaphysical in causation, the Committee used only physical
means of investigation, and rejected every hypothesis other than physical to explain them.
Although in the preliminary report it was already

--- 87

aware of the Coulomb accusations in regard to phenomena in India, of the "Kiddle
incident" in connection with one of the "letters" in the "Occult
World," and of the nature of Mr. Massey's "private evidence" in regard to
another "Occult letter," yet the testimony to numerous other phenomena was so
overwhelming, so unquestioned, that the Committee say it is "impossible to avoid one
or other of two alternative conclusions: - Either that some of the phenomena recorded are
genuine, or that other persons of good standing in society, and with characters to lose,
have taken part in deliberate imposture." In the final report not a scintilla of
evidence can be found to controvert this testimony, nor to impeach the "persons of
good standing in society, and with characters to lose." They, at least, are not
charged with having "taken part in deliberate imposture."

How, then, does the Committee explain the phenomena so overwhelmingly testified to? It
says they were due "to spontaneous illusion, or hallucination, or unconscious
misrepresentation or invention on the part of the witnesses." For this wholesale
"explanation," nota bene, not one particle of evidence is introduced or
pretended to be introduced. It rests unequivocally, nakedly and unashamedly on the ipse
dixit of the Committee; its only support their theories and speculations to account
for phenomena that cannot otherwise be done away with. Where then was the
"spontaneous illusion, or hallucination, or unconscious misrepresentation or
invention" - "on the part of the witnesses," or on the part of the
Committee and Mr. Hodgson?

It remains to be stated that neither the members of the Committee nor Mr. Hodgson were
able themselves to produce any phenomena, nor were witness of any of the Theosophical
phenomena. Nor did they claim for themselves any knowledge of their own as to how such
phenomena could or could not be produced. All that they had originally set out to do was
to secure the testimony of witnesses who had seen phenomena. The two reports show that
with the single exception of the accusations of the Coulombs not a witness of the more

--- 88

than one hundred whose testimony was obtained, but testified unequivocally and
positively to the occurrence of phenomena under circumstances that for him precluded any
other conclusions but that the phenomena were genuine. So much for the competency of the
Committee to adjudge the facts as testified to.

Upon what, then, did the Committee rely for its conclusions? Upon the Coulombs; upon
the "Kiddle incident"; upon Mr. Massey's "private evidence"; upon the
"expert opinions" of Mr. F.G. Netherclift and Mr. Sims on handwritings; most of
all on the "opinions" of Mr. Hodgson and others. The Coulombs and their charges
have already been discussed. By their own story they were knaves, cheats, and
extortioners, "accomplices" with plainly evident evil motives, whose story had
no independent corroboration whatever outside the suspicions of Mr. Hodgson and others,
and which was denied point-blank by H.P.B., contradicted point-blank by the testimony of
scores of actual independent witnesses and investigators. "The Kiddle incident"
has been given, (1) and whatever opinion may be formed in regard to it, there is no
evidence whatever of fraud in connection with it, or of any bad faith on the part of Mr.
Sinnett or H.P.B. or any other Theosophist. Mr. Massey's "private evidence" is
given at p. 397 of the Report and anyone who reads it can determine for himself that,
whatever of the mysterious and the unexplained there may be in connection with the matter,
there is no evidence whatever of any fraud on H.P.B.'s part. As in many, many other
cases, something occurred which Mr. Massey could not understand; his doubts were aroused;
H.P.B. denied absolutely any wrong-doing, but refused as absolutely to explain the
mystery; hence she was "guilty of fraud."

Mr. Hodgson and the Committee reached the conclusion that the "Mahatma
letters" to Mr. Sinnett and others were in fact written by Madame Blavatsky - a
conclusion only, be it noted. To fortify this opinion some of the letters were submitted
to Mr. Sims of the British

-------------

(1) See Chapter IV.

-------------

--- 89

Museum and to Mr. Netherclift, a London handwriting expert, along with samples of the
writing of H.P.B. In the first instance both Mr. Netherclift and Mr. Sims independently
reached the conclusion that the Mahatma letters were not written by H.P.B. This is one
of the "certain difficulties" already spoken of as confronting Mr. Hodgson and
the Committee. For if the Mahatma letters were not written by H.P.B., who wrote
them? After his return to England, therefore, Mr. Hodgson found himself in a quandary
on this phase of his report. He thereupon took the matter up again with the experts, and
agreeably they reversed their opinion and decided that the letters were written by
H.P.B.! Incredible as this may appear it is the fact as derived from the report itself.
One who is at all familiar with the course of "expert testimony" as to
handwriting knows that, at best, such testimony is but opinion, and often erroneous, even
where not formed to suit the desires of the client. An example is furnished of the
fallibility of "expert opinion" by this very Mr. Netherclift himself, for, a few
years later, he was called as an expert witness in the celebrated case of Charles Stewart
Parnell against the London Times for libel. In that case Mr. Netherclift swore
positively that the signature to the famous "Pigott letters" was the handwriting
of Mr. Parnell. Later on in the case Pigott himself confessed in open court that he had
forged the signatures.

The earliest known Mahatma letter was one handed to Madame Fadeef, aunt of H.P.B. and
widow of a well-known Russian General, in 1870, long before H.P.B. was known in the world,
and long before the formation of the Theosophical Society. According to the written
testimony of Madame Fadeef, whose good character no one questioned, the letter was handed
to her in Russia by an Oriental who vanished before her eyes. She stated that, at
the time, H.P.B. had been absent for years, no one of the family knew of her whereabouts,
all their inquiries had come to naught, and they were ready to believe her dead when the
letter relieved their anxieties by saying that she was in the care of the Mahatmas and

--- 90

would rejoin her family within eighteen months. With regard to this first Mahatmic
letter, which is given in the preliminary report, Prof. F.W.H. Myers, the leading member
of the Committee, himself certified as follows: "I have seen this letter, which
certainly appears to be in the K.H. (Mahatma) handwriting. - F.W.H.M." Can
anyone suppose that this Mahatma letter, written to relieve the pressing anxieties of
loved and loving relatives, was "due to deliberate deception carried out by or at the
instigation of Madame Blavatsky?" If not, how account for it and the other Mahatma
letters being in the same handwriting?

Remains one more question for consideration: that of the "moral factor" of
motive. The influences affecting the motives and conduct of the Committee, Mr. Hodgson,
the Coulombs and others, have been indicated. In every case preconceptions, ignorance of
Occult laws and processes; mysterious circumstances which they could not understand and
which H.P.B. refused to elucidate; the baffling nature of the phenomena; self-interest;
popular and sectarian pressures and prejudices - all combined to create uncertainties,
doubts, suspicions, conjectures and inferences of fraud and deception. The evidence, that
which was actually testified to, was overwhelmingly in support of the genuineness of the
phenomena.

The motives of the witnesses are equally evident; they had nothing whatever to
gain and everything to lose by their testimony. They were affirming the genuineness and
reality of phenomena in which nine-tenths of humanity disbelieves, and which, if proved
and accepted, would upset and destroy cherished and almost universally prevailing ideas in
religion, science, and "almost every department of human thought and action."
The most that could have been expected from the Committee in such circumstances was such a
conclusion as that of the London Dialectical Society on the Spiritualistic phenomena. But
the Theosophical principles and phenomena reach far deeper into the foundations of human
consciousness. Unlike the Spiritualist manifestations and

--- 91

theories, there is no room for reconciliation or compromise between Theosophical
teachings and phenomena and the "forces of reaction," the established interests
in church and science and human conduct. Bitter as was the opposition to Darwinism,
malevolent as was the antagonism to the spread of Spiritualism and to such investigators
of it as Prof. Crookes, these were as nothing to the fear and hatred inspired by H.P.B.,
her teachings and her phenomena. In the one case compromise, a middle ground, was
possible. In her case it was instinctively recognized by all that no compromise was
possible. Hence, the conclusions of the Committee were in fact foregone from the
beginning.

In no one thing, perhaps, is the weakness of the S.P.R. investigation more fatally
self-betraying than in the motives they assign to account for the "long-continued
combination and deliberate deception instigated and carried out by Madame Blavatsky."
That anyone, let alone a woman, should for ten or more years make endless personal
sacrifices of effort, time, money, health, and reputation in three continents, merely to
deceive those who trusted her, with no possible benefit to herself; should succeed in so
deceiving hundreds of the most intelligent men and women of many races that they were
convinced of the reality of her powers, her teachings, her mission as well as her
phenomena, only to be unmasked by a boy of twenty-three who, by interviewing some of the
witnesses and hearing their stories, is able infallibly to see what they could not see, is
able to suspect what they could find no occasion for suspecting, is able to detect a
sufficient motive for inspiring H.P.B. to the most monumental career of chicanery in all
history - this is what one has to swallow in order to attach credibility to the elaborate
tissue of conjecture and suspicion woven by Mr. Hodgson to offset the solid weight of
testimony that the phenomena were genuine.

"No crime without a motive." What, then, was the motive attributed by Mr.
Hodgson and the Committee to make credible their conclusion that she was "one of the
most accomplished, ingenious, and interesting im-

--- 92

postors in history?" She was a Russian spy, and her motive was to destroy
British rule in India!

It is interesting to observe the successive steps of the Committee's struggle with this
question of the possible motive of H.P.B. In the preliminary report the Committee raises
the question of "all the commoner and baser motives to fraud or exaggeration,"
and dismisses them: "we may say at once that no trustworthy evidence supporting
such a view has been brought under our notice." Next the Committee considers the
possibility of "good" motives for bad conduct: "Now we know, indeed,
that the suspicions which the Anglo-Indian authorities at first entertained as to the
political objects of the Theosophical Society have been abandoned as groundless."
Next the Committee say, "But we can imagine schemes and intentions of a patriotic
kind... we must be on our guard against men's highest instincts quite as much as their
lowest."

In the final report Mr. Hodgson goes over the grounds of possible motives: "The
question which will now inevitably arise is - what has induced Madame Blavatsky to live
so many laborious days in such a fantastic work of imposture?... I should consider
this Report incomplete unless I suggest what I myself believe to be an adequate
explanation of her ten years' toil on behalf of the Theosophical Society."

Was it egotism? "A closer knowledge of her character would show such a
supposition to be quite untenable."

Was she a plain, unvarnished fraud? "She is, indeed, a rare psychological study,
almost as rare as a 'Mahatma'! She was terrible exceedingly when she expressed her
overpowering thought that perhaps her "twenty years' work might be spoiled through
Madame Coulomb."

Was it religious mania, a morbid yearning for notoriety? "I must confess that the
problem of her motives... caused me no little perplexity... The sordid motive of
pecuniary gain would be a solution still less satisfactory than the hypothesis of
religious mania....

--- 93

But even this hypothesis I was unable to adopt, and reconcile with my understanding
of her character."

What, then, was the compelling motive that induced the labors of a Hercules, the
sacrifices of a Christ, to carry on a career of deception worthy of the Prince of
Deceivers himself? "At last a casual conversation opened my eyes.... I cannot
profess, myself, after my personal experiences with Madame Blavatsky, to feel much doubt
that her real object has been the furtherance of Russian interests.... I suggest it
here only as a supposition which appears best to cover the known incidents of her career
during the past 13 or 14 years."

H.P. Blavatsky lived and died a martyr, physically, mentally, and in all that men hold
dear; she forsook relatives, friends, ease and high social standing, became an expatriate
and naturalized citizen of an alien land on the other side of the globe; she founded a
Society to which she gave unremitting and unthanked devotion; she wrote "Isis
Unveiled," the "Secret Doctrine," the "Voice of the Silence," all
of which were proscribed in Russia; she became a veritable Wandering Jew devoted to the
propagation of teachings and ideas hateful to the world of "reactionary forces";
she eschewed all concern with political objects of any kind, all attachment to "race,
creed, sex, caste, or color," and her lifeblood formed and sustained a Society sworn
to the same abstentions; she lived and she died in poverty - slandered, calumniated,
betrayed by followers and foes alike; misunderstood by all; she never, from 1873 to the
day of her death, set foot on Russian soil, an exile from family and country.

It will easily be understood that the opening of the year 1885
found the Theosophists in India in the utmost disorder and disarray - assailed on all
sides from without by triumphant enemies; prey to confusion and recriminations within.

H.P.B. lay physically ill, wavering between life and death. Col. Olcott, availing
himself of an invitation previously extended to him in recognition of his work for the
revival of Buddhism, left almost immediately for a visit to the Burmese capital, Mandalay.
On his arrival at Rangoon, en route to the court of Theebaw III, he was met by the
leading Buddhist priests and dignitaries. Here he was cordially received and remained for
a considerable time, holding conferences, giving lectures, and regaining his spirits in an
atmosphere removed from the depressing situation at headquarters. Just as he was on the
point of proceeding to Mandalay he received a telegram from Damodar urging his immediate
return to India because of the apparently fatal turn in the condition of H.P.B.

It can scarcely be doubted that Col. Olcott's return to headquarters was impelled by
what were to him still more urgent reasons, for he was at the same time in receipt of
advices from his Hindu intimates that affairs were fast becoming desperate. He was advised
that many Lodges were lapsing into dormancy, others threatening to dissolve; his General
Council divided into two camps, with those opposed to him in the ascendant. The facts
appear to have been that in addition to those few who had remained steadfastly loyal to
H.P.B., numerous other European and some Hindu members had, by

--- 95

reaction, felt to some extent the monstrous injustice done H.P.B. and were in the mood
to make the President-Founder the scapegoat for the timidity and the lukewarmness of all.
The sense of present and impending loss caused many to realize the fatal error of
deserting H.P.B. and all knew that the Convention's action was directly due to the
sanction of Col. Olcott. A determined movement had gained headway to limit his autocratic
control and direction of the society's affairs, by making the Council an actual executive
and responsible governing body, instead of as hitherto the mere cloak and instrument of
the President's wishes. This spontaneous feeling was placed before H.P.B., and she had
given her signature of approval in the following words: "Believing that this new
arrangement is necessary for the welfare of the Society, I approve of it, so far as I am
concerned."

Colonel Olcott, who had been foremost in the belief that it was necessary to abandon
H.P.B. "for the honor of the Society" and to preserve it from shafts aimed at it
through H.P.B., now felt himself stung to the quick by these evidences of defection and
disaffection on the part of the members towards himself. After consultation with his
friends he went straight to the mortally stricken H.P.B., as all thought her, and besought
her to restore him to his former status and function. Clouded and piecemeal as are the
published fragments of information concerning the events of those trying months, certain
facts seem clear in the light of subsequent history. It would appear that Col. Olcott
recognized and admitted his faults, promised to take a more loyal and consistent course in
the future, and agreed to pursue a less arbitrary policy in his management of the Society.
Knowing that his devotion to the well-being of the Society was constant and unswerving,
whatever his mistakes due to his vanity and self-sufficiency, and always tolerant and
generous to the last degree toward friend or foe, it is clear that H.P.B. accepted his
repentance and professions and once more lent him her powerful protection. She withdrew
her authorization of

--- 96

the proposed changes, smoothed out the personal feelings aroused between Col. Olcott
and his partisans and those opposed to his rulership, and left to him to make as of his
own volition and accord the needful modifications of policy and conduct. This is the
secret of the various notices in the "Supplement" to The Theosophist for
May, 1885, concerning the "Formation of an Executive Committee," the
"Special Notification," and the "Special Orders of 1885." Likewise in
these events will be found the explanation of Col. Olcott's visit to Mr. Hodgson and his
effort to get that gentleman to take a more impartial if not more friendly attitude toward
the Theosophical evidences and explanations connected with the phenomena, which Mr.
Hodgson was investigating almost entirely from the standpoint of the Coulombs and the
missionaries. Sincere and well-intentioned as this move of Col. Olcott's undoubtedly was,
it could but serve, in view of all the circumstances, to increase and confirm the already
acute suspicions of Mr. Hodgson; and this, as we have seen, is what in fact occurred. Col.
Olcott also, in his new zeal, made strenuous and partly successful efforts to procure the
writing and publication of articles favorable to H.P.B. and her phenomena in various
Indian papers.

But knowing well the weaknesses as well as the virtues of her colleague, H.P.B. was
under no illusions as to the final outcome. She knew Col. Olcott's self-esteem, his
doubts, jealousies and suspicions; knew only too well the personal ambitions, rivalries
and animosities with which the headquarters were rife. As appeared many years later, she
addressed on April 11, 1885, a letter to Col. Olcott, in which she told him that no parole
loyalty would suffice to repair the mischief that had been done; that she had willingly
borne and would continue to bear in her own person the evil Karma engendered by him and by
the Society, but that in deserting her the Society and its leaders were in fact deserting
the Masters whose Agent she was; that she had done her best for them all, but that she
could not avoid for them the harvest of their own mistakes and ingratitude.

--- 97

This letter was written by H.P.B. from Aden, after she had left India. Colonel Olcott
suppressed this letter and in all his voluminous writings never referred to it. It was
preceded by her formal letter of March 21, addressed to the General Council, submitting
her resignation, which was accepted. The published interchange assigned the illness of
H.P.B. as the cause of her severance of relations officially with the Society in India,
and the same cause was given for her departure. This was all true but the deeper reason,
the Occult basis, was the desertion by Col. Olcott and his associates of the paramount
objectives of her Masters. This is shown by the acceptance of her resignation; by the
letter of April 11, 1885, as mentioned; by the report of a conversation with one of the
Mahatmas, (1) which report was also suppressed by Col. Olcott and never referred to by
him, though partially coming to light many years later; and by Col. Olcott's course
immediately following the resignation and departure of H.P.B. He at once set actively to
work to make the Society independent of H.P.B. The June number of The Theosophist
was prefaced at the head of the text with an italic insert accompanied by a
"printer's hand" and reading as follows:

"The Theosophical Society, as such, is not responsible for any opinion or
declaration in this or any other Journal, by whomsoever expressed, unless contained in an
official document."

In the same (June) number Col. Olcott published over his signature a leading editorial
on "Infallibility," devoted to a disclaimer of any reliance by the Society on
anyone's assumed powers, knowledge, or status, or that such reliance was in any way
necessary for the Society's success or existence. This was all aimed at H.P.B. and her
status as Agent of the Masters supposed to be behind the Theosophical Movement and the
Theosophical Society. Indirectly, it was at the same time an assertion

---------------

(1) Some extracts from this letter and from the conversation mentioned are given in The
Theosophist for October, 1907, pp. 9, 10, and 78.

--------------

--- 98

of his own pre-eminence as the Head of the Society, since the only official documents
were those issued by himself as President-Founder, or at his instructions.

Damodar K. Mavalankar, next to H.P.B., the most loved and the most envied of the
Theosophists in India, and, aside from her, the only one of them generally known to be in
constant active touch with the Masters, had been her faithful and devoted servant and
indefatigable worker in the Cause. Much of her correspondence throughout the world had
been carried on by him under her directions; visiting chelas at headquarters were largely
cared for by him; the chief burden of the getting out of The Theosophist fell upon
his shoulders; and he had shared with her the stigma of the Coulomb charges and Mr.
Hodgson's investigating suspicions. He remained at Adyar for some time after the departure
of H.P.B., doing what could be done for the few who possessed the elements of real loyalty
and steadfastness. Towards the latter half of the year he left headquarters on a
"pilgrimage," and was last publicly heard of near the Thibetan frontiers. By
many he was thought to have perished of exposure, but there can be little doubt, from
hints afterwards given by H.P.B. and Mr. Judge, that in fact he was called by the Masters
into Their direct service and company. He thus received the reward of his undying devotion
and his uncomplaining endurance of the tribulations consequent upon his human defects and
mistakes. Of him the Master K.H. wrote, "Before he could 'stand in the presence of
the Masters' he had to undergo the severest trials that a neophyte ever passed
through." Damodar had first met H.P.B. early in 1879, had immediately forsaken
everything that men hold dear to become her faithful servant and chela, and in the ensuing
years of his probation had remained steadfastly loyal to her and her mission "without
variableness or the shadow of turning." Of his subsequent fortunes, his present
status, his future relations with the Theosophical Movement, the story remains untold; one
of the unwritten chapters of the Second Section.

--- 99

As the months went by it began to be apparent that the life of the Society in India
could not be maintained by its venous circulation alone. The contents of The
Theosophist deteriorated in quality; the circulation of the magazine diminished;
numerous branches ceased to exist except on paper, the membership fell off in others;
contributions and dues lessened; the Society was fast falling into mere discussion of the
endless metaphysics of Hindu faiths and philosophies. On the other hand news began to
permeate the Indian contingent that H.P.B. was being visited in her European retirement by
staunch friends, corresponded with by an ever-increasing number of inquirers, supported by
the adherence of new and notable persons. Colonel Olcott, who had ever a weakness for the
acquaintance of the great and the near-great, began to take stock of the fortunes of war.
Nor can it, we think, be doubted that as time went on, as her absence and his sense of
loss of the old daily intimacy, the old strong and unfailing guidance of the "lion of
the Punjab" grew more keen; as the truer and nobler side of his nature had
opportunity to reassert itself - that side of his nature which had inspired him in the
beginning to do as Damodar had done, to give up all to follow her in her unknown path - it
cannot be doubted, we think, that Col. Olcott repented him of the mistakes and
lukewarmness of the recent years, and endeavored so far as was in his power, short of a
public disavowal of his erroneous course, to remedy his mistakes. And in this he was
strengthened by the treatment accorded him by H.P.B. She chided him as little as might be;
she continued unfailingly to send him articles for insertion in The Theosophist;
she made a will bequeathing to him her entire interest in the magazine and making over its
entire revenue to him; she encouraged by every means in her power every good effort, every
good impulse that arose from him; she laughed at her own miseries and misfortunes, and
made light of all obstacles in the way.

Colonel Olcott was supported and encouraged also by the good-will of those near at hand
who had remained

--- 100

steadfast in devotion to H.P.B. without withdrawing their countenance from him. All
these factors had their compelling influence, and at the Indian Convention at the close of
1885 his public Address as President to the assembled delegates and visitors was marked by
the expression of strong feeling and sincere declarations in respect to H.P.B. In this
mood he was willing to retire as President to promote the solidarity and renewed life of
the Society. Says the Report of the Convention as published in the "Supplement"
to The Theosophist for January, 1886:

"The President being called away temporarily on business, and Major-General Morgan
occupying the Chair, the following resolutions ... were carried by acclamation with great
enthusiasm.

"Resolved, That in the event of the health of Madame H.P. Blavatsky being
sufficiently restored, she be requested to resume the office which she has relinquished.

"Resolved, That the charges brought against Madame Blavatsky by her enemies
have not been proven, and that our affection and respect for her continue unabated.

"Whereas the Convention has heard with great sorrow from the lips of the
President-Founder, Col. H.S. Olcott, the expression of his desire to retire to private
life on account of his competency for his present duty being questioned by some, the
Convention unanimously

"Resolve: (1) That the President-Founder has by his unremitting zeal,
self-sacrifices, courage, industry, virtuous life and intelligence, won the confidence of
members of the Society and endeared himself to them throughout the world; and (2) that as
this Convention cannot for one moment entertain the thought of his retiring from the
Society which he has done so much to build up, and has conducted safely through vari-

--- 101

ous perils by his prudence and practical wisdom, they request him to continue his
invaluable services to the Society to the last."

This approach to real union, this united aim, brotherly feeling, and mutual support in
the spirit of the First Object, as manifested by the Convention, had its immediate
beneficial effect, and for the ensuing three years the Society in India shared in the
prosperity of the Movement throughout the world - the rising tide after the S.P.R. attempt
to wreck the Society. It is worth while for students to note that every storm that ever
raged about the Society had its inception in neglect of the First Object and its practical
application, brotherly loyalty and devotion; every recovery from wounds and losses was due
to a return to the fundamental basis of the Society and the fundamental precept of the
Second Section - instant readiness to "defend the life or honour of a brother
Theosophist even at the risk of their own lives." Had this been borne in mind by
those who were "quick to doubt and despair, who had worked for themselves and not for
the Cause," had the consistent example set, no less than the precepts given, by
H.P.B. been made the rule of action by those responsible for the policy and conduct of the
Third Section - the Theosophical Society proper - the "solidarity in the ranks"
of the Society would not only "have enabled it to resist all external attacks, but
also have made it possible for greater, wider, and more tangible help to have been given
it" by the First and Second Sections, "who are always ready to give help when we
are fit to receive it."

H.P. Blavatsky left the headquarters and sailed from India at the beginning of April,
1885. Such was her physical condition that she had to be carried on board the vessel.
Accompanied by her physician and an attendant she voyaged to Naples, Italy, where she
remained for some months in sickness, poverty, and isolation. From there she removed in
the summer to Wurzburg, Germany, where she was visited and sustained by the devoted
Gebhards of Elberfeld. Thither also came

--- 102

the Countess Wachtmeister, widow of the late Swedish Ambassador to England. Countess
Wachtmeister was an English woman by birth, a natural psychic who had been interested in
Spiritualism and then in the Theosophical phenomena. She had become a member of the London
Lodge and had met H.P.B. at London the year before. Hearing of the distress into which
H.P.B. was plunged, and convinced by her own experiences that the phenomena of H.P.B. were
genuine, the Countess came from Sweden to visit her. What she saw and felt caused her to
remain, and from then onwards the Countess gave herself up to the service of H.P.B., as
friend, as companion, as amanuensis, as voluntary servant. To Wurzburg came also friends
and correspondents of Dr. Franz Hartmann, whose experience and intuition of the real
nature of H.P.B. were always strong enough to keep him loyal despite the frictions of
personalities between himself and others. Here came Dr. Hubbe-Schleiden, the noted German
savant, who had met H.P.B. the year before at the Gebhards and who, like Dr. Hartmann, had
absorbed enough of her philosophy to keep him energized for the remainder of his life in
channels akin to the work of the Theosophical Movement. Came also the Russian writer,
Solovyoff the younger, who had met H.P.B. in Paris the year before, and whose evil Karma
it was subsequently to become tool and victim

of the forces opposed to her and her work. During her Wurzburg residence H.P.B. was
also visited by Mr. and Mrs. Sinnett and others from London and Paris. Here also came many
others moved by sympathy, by gratitude, by curiosity, by all the motives that affect
mankind.

H.P.B. lived at Wurzburg for nearly a year, alternating between long relapses and brief
partial recoveries. During the whole period her labors never abated. Articles for The
Theosophist, miscellaneous contributions to Russian periodicals for her daily bread,
and a correspondence that daily increased, kept her busy. Many of her letters at this
period were written by her volunteer helpers at her dictation or direction. During the

--- 103

whole period, also, she was occupied with the vast burden of the composition of the
"Secret Doctrine."

In May, 1886, her medical advisers once more insisted on a change of climate and
surroundings if her life were to be prolonged. Accordingly, she removed to Ostend,
Belgium, and here she lived in constantly increasing toil and turmoil. Dr. Anna Bonus
Kingsford and her associate, Mr. E. Maitland, visited her here, and here came many English
and French Theosophists for making or renewing personal touch with her. Late in the winter
and in the early spring of 1887, the physical state of H.P.B. once more became so
desperate that her life was despaired of. Miss Francesca Arundale, Miss Kislingbury, the
two Keightleys, Archibald and Bertram, and other London Theosophists were anxious for her
to remove to England where she could be better cared for. Madame Gebhard and Dr. Ashton
Ellis, a young London physician and member of the London Lodge, were telegraphed for by
Countess Wachtmeister. They came in all haste and were assiduous in their ministrations.
This unstinted devotion once more pulled H.P.B. through the crisis. The Keightleys came
over and urged the necessities of the English Theosophists for her presence among them.
Yielding to the loving solicitations of these devoted friends and followers, the wanderer
once more took ship, carried on board as before, and, physically a helpless and inert
mass, was installed in a cottage in Norwood, where she passed the summer of 1887. In the
autumn the house at 17 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park, West, was taken by her friends and
thither H.P.B. was removed to quarters specially prepared for her in the midst of an
atmosphere of good-will and watchful consideration.

Thus surrounded and sheltered, H.P.B. measurably regained strength, though her health
never became such as to exempt her from continuous physical suffering or to enable her to
take needful exercise. It is doubtful if during the last six years of her life she had a
single waking hour of complete relaxation, and it is certain that she rarely was able to
go outside her domicile unaided.

--- 104

Yet these six years were the ones of her stormy Career most filled, not only with the
trials and tribulations incident to the many attacks upon her name and fame, not only with
the press and demands of claimants upon her time and attention, not only with the
correspondence and work of the Theosophical Movement from day to day, but they were, as
well, the most fruitful of enduring results for all mankind. It was during this period
that the "Secret Doctrine," the "Key to Theosophy," "The Voice of
the Silence," and the "Theosophical Glossary" were written; Lucifer was
begun with its first issue dated September 15, 1887, and its monthly contents during the
succeeding years contained a steady stream from the inexhaustible fountain of her wisdom.

The presence of H.P.B. in Europe resulted from the first in a revival of courage,
confidence, and action on the part of those who had remained steadfast during the Coulomb
charges, the S.P.R. investigation and report, and the succeeding blasts in the press. Work
began in Germany and France with fresh vigor and new Lodges were formed in addition to the
existing ones. Many new Fellows entered the Society, some of them persons of considerable
reputation in other fields of effort. The Sphynx was began in Germany, Le Lotus
in France, and the study and discussion of subjects within the lines of the Three Objects
went on apace. After the removal of H.P.B. to England, additional Lodges were established
in Ireland, Scotland, in the larger cities of England, and the Blavatsky Lodge was formed
in London. Here H.P.B. herself replied to questions on the "Stanzas" of the
"Secret Doctrine" at a number of sessions. These questions and answers were
stenographically reported and, when revised, were published as "Transactions 1 and 2
of the Blavatsky Lodge."

When the S.P.R. Proceedings, Volume 3, were published late in 1885, Mr. Sinnett,
then President of the London Lodge, wrote a pamphlet "Reply" which was published
early in 1886. He also wrote a strong letter to Light, the leading Spiritualist
publication in England. His clear statements and wide repute went far to stem

--- 105

the unfavorable tide of press comment consequent on the S.P.R. report. In the summer of
1886 his "Incidents in the Life of Madame Blavatsky" was published by Redway.
This book, with its partial disclosures of personal matters, its anecdotes and narratives
of the most astonishing phenomena, its mysterious hiatuses, its pervading atmosphere of
sincerity, candor, and common sense in the midst of the well-nigh incredible marvels
recited, and above all, with its pictures of the living H.P.B. as a most fascinating and
human being steadily giving herself, soul, mind, and heart to a cause sacred to her; a
good-natured, unrevengeful fighter undismayed and undaunted by the mountains of hatred and
calumny heaped upon her - this book created a profound impression far and wide, and
aroused a sympathy for this martyr to her convictions, and an interest in her teachings,
that brought many into the ranks of the Society, and turned to good account the adverse
findings of the S.P.R.

In the spring of 1885 was published "Light on the Path, written down by M.C."
The initials stood for Mabel Collins, niece of the celebrated novelist. Mabel Collins was
a psychic, a member of the London Lodge, and herself a novelist. "Light on the
Path" was "written down" by its sponsor without previous knowledge or study
of Eastern teachings. As originally published it was but a small pamphlet without the
"Comments" subsequently published in Lucifer and incorporated in most of
the later editions of "Light on the Path." The work created a veritable
sensation and has probably been more widely circulated than any other single Theosophical
publication. Its companion books, "The Idyll of the White Lotus," and
"Through the Gates of Gold," have also been very widely read and studied. Many
stories have been told, both by the reputed author and others, regarding the actual source
of these writings. These will be discussed in their proper place. (2)

"Five Years of Theosophy," made up of articles reprinted from the first five
volumes of The Theosophist,

-------------

(2) See Chapter XIII.

----------------

--- 106

and "Man - Fragments of Forgotten History," by "Two Chelas of the
Theosophical Society," were issued in 1885 by Reeves & Turner, London, and both
passed through several editions. The "Two Chelas" are stated by Miss Francesca
Arundale to have been Mohini M. Chatterji and Mrs. L.C. Holloway (The Theosophist,
October, 1917).

Contemporaneously with the revival in India and the renaissance in Europe and England,
the spiral upward path of the Movement produced a fresh and higher impulsion in the United
States. Where in India the restrictions were such that practically the whole force of the
Movement took the line of the Second Object, and in England and on the Continent the
environment of thought and action naturally limited the major attention to the line of the
Third Object, in America the chief stress from the beginning of the second decade was upon
the great First Object.

In India the study and discussion of comparative religion and philosophy was the only
possible open door to any arousal of interest among the members of the hitherto rigidly
exclusive sects and castes. In England and Europe, given over to Christian sectarianism,
scientific materialism, and Spiritualism, and with the binding fetters of caste and class
exclusiveness hardly less rigid than in India, only the neutral ground of interest
afforded by the Third Object gave a field in which to sow the seed of the Theosophical
teachings. In America the Second and Third Objects had formed the magnet for the original
organization and membership of the Society, and had been used by H.P.B. as the raison
d'etre for the writing and publication of "Isis Unveiled." Not till the
second decade of the Society opened was it possible to re-start the work of the Movement
in its direct public channel, the Society, on the real line, that of the First Object. The
beginning of this was in the United States, at New York, in the Aryan Theosophical
Society, the reorganization and reincarnation of the parent Society of 1875. The presiding
genius of the Aryan Society, and of the work of the Movement, esoteric and exoteric, in

--- 107

the United States was Mr. William Q. Judge. With the second decade the work fell into
its three streams with Mr. Judge in America, H.P.B. in Europe, and Col. Olcott in India.
As we shall all too soon see, that which was intended to be the three great natural
branches of the work of the Society, metaphysically as well as geographically, broke into
alien organizations as well as alien purposes.

Mr. Judge had kept up an unbroken communion with H.P.B. and an unbroken accord with
Col. Olcott during all the years from the time of the separation of the three Founders at
the close of the year 1878 when H.P.B. and Col. Olcott departed for India. In the early
summer of 1884 he had gone to France and passed some time with H.P.B., proceeded thence to
India where he formed acquaintance with the leading Hindu members, completed his touch
with Damodar and others connected with the First and Second Sections, and had returned to
America near the close of the year. During the year 1885 he was busied with the
rejuvenation of the Aryan Lodge, with the revival of interest among the scattered Fellows
and the few existing Lodges in the United States. In April, 1886, he issued the first
number of The Path, the magazine of which H.P.B. said and wrote: "It is pure
Buddhi." Thenceforth The Path was the organ par excellence, not only of
the American members of the Theosophical Society, but of the Theosophical Movement and the
practical, devotional applications of the teachings of Theosophy. Within a year from the
commencement of its publication the number of branches had tripled, and active study and
propaganda had created a widespread interest in the press and in the public mind. The
Board of Control appointed in 1884 by Col. Olcott, the President, at Mr. Judge's
suggestion, for the facilitation of the routine of the American Branches and membership,
continued until the summer of 1886. October 30 of that year, again at Mr. Judge's request
to H.P.B. and upon her suggestion to Col. Olcott, the Board of Control met at Cincinnati,
together with delegates either in person or by proxy from the American Lodges and

--- 108

organized the "American Section of the Theosophical Society." In April, 1887,
the first Convention of the newly formed Section met at New York City, a constitution and
by-laws were adopted, officers chosen, and the first democratic organization embracing a
number of independent Branches was effected in the Society's history. Mr. Judge was
elected General Secretary of the American Section.

The American Section of the Theosophical Society was not an organization of the
individual Fellows of the Society, but a federation of all the Branches, Lodges, or
Societies in the United States. Each separate Society was autonomous in its own internal
affairs, like the states of the American Union, but all were joined together in a single
governing body with its own constitution, powers, and officers, similar to the Federal
government, which was, in fact the model followed, both in the organization of the Parent
Theosophical Society and of the American Section. The General Council in India was
recognized, and the unity of the Society throughout the world in purpose and teaching was
affirmed. At the same time the right to independence was placed on record in these words
of Mr. Judge in his first formal Report, read at the second Convention at Chicago in
April, 1888: "Of course the American Branches could have met together and formed
themselves independently, but since we draw our real inspiration from India, it would seem
unwise as well as disloyal to have failed to try and keep the orderly and regular
succession." The prior de facto nature of the conduct of the Society's
affairs, corresponding to that of the Confederation of the Thirteen Colonies before the
adoption of the American Constitution, was also recorded in these words referring to the
previously existing Board of Control:

"That Board was therefore in charge of the interests of the movement here, and was
in fact a continuation of the system of somewhat paternal and unrepresentative government
which had up to that time prevailed."

--- 109

The "somewhat paternal and unrepresentative government" continued to mark the
conduct of affairs in India throughout, and in Europe until 1890, but in America the
conduct of the Society was henceforth strictly democratic.

This Convention of 1888, while the second chronologically, was really the first from
the standpoint of organized activity in America. It was attended by delegates in person or
by proxy from all the active Lodges in the United States, by that time twenty-two in
number; was signalized by letters of greeting from India, from the Council of the London
Lodge, and by the attendance of Dr. Archibald Keightley as a formal delegate from the
Blavatsky Lodge and the London Lodge, in both of which he was an officer. Dr. Keightley
was also acting as the special representative of Madame Blavatsky, from whom he bore a
long and important Letter to the Convention. This Letter was read to the assembled
delegates and afterwards printed in the published "Official Report of
Proceedings" issued by the American Section.

The autumn of 1888, the beginning of the fourteenth year of the Society's career, was
marked by the most important event in its history, next to the organization of the
democratic American Section, and was, in fact, the outcome of that epochal point: the
public announcement and inauguration of the Esoteric Section, which must now be traced.

Hitherto we have been concerned with the survey of the
Theosophical Movement of the nineteenth century from its public aspects: the recital of a
series of events more or less in relation with each other and with the sum of human
activities, together with such reflections on their bearings and significance as to us
appear logical and consistent. An attempt has been made to show clearly that the
vicissitudes both of the Theosophical Society and Madame Blavatsky's teachings of
Theosophy were inevitable and but a repetition of the varying fortunes which have attended
every former effort to introduce a system of thought and action at variance with the
ideas, customs, and practices still firmly entrenched in the mind of the race. So far, all
that we have discussed is accessible in all its detail to any inquiring student, and the
ordinary mind will find nothing beyond the range of common observation and experience. The
student will have both the advantage and the disadvantage of the familiar multitude of
conflicting testimony and opinion that attends every inquiry into human affairs. He will
find nothing that transcends the possibility of reconciliation or explanation on his
habitual lines of thought, without greatly deranging his fundamental preconceptions
regarding God, Nature, Man, and the course of evolution.

But, as we have early intimated, (1) the Theosophical Movement has an esoteric as well
as an exoteric side, and here the Western student is without guide, chart, or compass,
either in his own memorial experience or in any as

-------------

(1) See Chapter III.

------------

--- 111

credited testimony of the race to which he belongs. Not only so, but he will find
himself confronted, both in himself and in the race, with a deeply imbedded incredulity
which derides and despises the very possibility, even, of intellectual and spiritual
evolution within and behind physical evolution. The student of the esoteric side of the
Theosophical Movement has then literally to take the position of a Columbus. He has to
postulate the existence of the spiritual and mental world or worlds, independent of and
superior to our familiar universe, yet inter-penetrating it at every point, standing in
relation to it as a cause to an effect, and, in man, almost inextricably interwoven and
interblended in his embodied existence. He has to admit the fundamental assumption that
spiritual and intellectual evolution is as much under Law in its processes and resultants
as physical evolution, and that the latter is but the shadow and the reflex of the mental,
as the mental is of the spiritual. He has to recognize the inevitable corollary of these
propositions, that Life, individual as well as collective, is continuous, and that
the infinite course of spiritual, mental, and physical evolution has produced Beings as
much superior to man as man is superior to a black beetle - as was once speculatively
suggested by Prof. Huxley - and, finally, that these Beings take an active part in
"the government of the natural order of things."

The student will find that Western religious history and Western tradition and myth do,
indeed, present an immense literature dealing with gods, angels, demons, fairies, and so
on, and with their relations to human beings and human affairs, but such beings and their
interventions are regarded either as miraculous or fictitious, and belief in them rests
either on the grounds of "revelation" or of mere opinions ingrained from
childhood, or of some misunderstood personal psychological experience. Nowhere is there
any philosophy, any scientific, any logical, any historical evidence or basis for
the existence and action of superhuman and subhuman entities as the product of
evolutionary Law. Such a theory or such a fact is as unknown or as derided in the
West,

--- 112

as foreign to its basic concepts, as the ideas of pre-existence, metempsychosis,
reincarnation, Karma, continuous immortality - all integral and inseparable parts of the
fundamental assumptions connected with the esoteric aspects of the Theosophical Movement.
Only when all these are recognized, at least as a working hypothesis, does the expression,
"the esoteric side of the Theosophical Movement," become tolerable in any but a
materialistic sense. The student is compelled to turn aside from the religion, philosophy,
and thought of the day and familiarize himself with the recorded philosophy of Theosophy,
if he is to view the facts of record in any other light than that of the well-nigh
universal preconceptions of the Western race. It is only through the most careful and
conscientious study and application of the teachings of Theosophy that the student can
hope to penetrate beyond the visible aspects of the Theosophical Movement to the arcana of
the intellectual and spiritual factors and forces which constitute the Occult side of that
Movement.

The first direct affirmation of the existence of Adepts, Beings perfected spiritually,
intellectually, and physically, the flower of human and all evolution, is, so far as the
Western world is concerned, to be found in the opening sentence of "Isis
Unveiled." From beginning to end that work is strewn with evidences, arguments, and
declarations regarding Adepts and their doctrines. Theosophy is declared to be a portion
of Their Wisdom; its teachings are presented for the examination and study of the world
and of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society.

As subsequently appeared from the repeated testimony of all three, before the
publication of "Isis," and even prior to the foundation of the Theosophical
Society, H.P.B. had imparted many of her teachings to Col. Olcott and Mr. Judge, had
convinced them of her phenomenal powers over matter, time, and space, and had accepted
them as her pupils. More, through her intervention both of them had become assured of the
existence of the Adepts, had received phenomenal visits from them, and

--- 113

had made their pledges under the rules of Occultism direct to the Masters of the Great
Lodge of Adepts. They had reached the determination to follow the guidance and instruction
of H.P.B. and it was under her inspiration that the Theosophical Society was formed.
Again, from the subsequent repeated statements of all three as to the events and relations
of those earliest days, it is apparent that the connection between H.P.B. and Mr. Judge
was of a different and deeper nature than the relation established with Col. Olcott - as
will develop in the due course of our study. Nor were Col. Olcott and Mr. Judge her only
pledged associates, though the names, duties, and activities of the others have never been
publicly disclosed. But mention of the fact occurs in the "Introductory" of the
"Secret Doctrine," in Lucifer, Volume 3, p. 173, in various "E.S.T.
Aids," and in other places in Theosophical writings. And something of the nature and
widespread activities of the Adepts apart from the Theosophical Society, is plainly to be
discerned in an article in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for January, 1880. This
was written by an English publicist and embodies a very remarkable letter written by an
unknown individual named as a "Turkish Effendi," on the relations of
Christianity and Islam.

The fact of these private teachings, of the intimate connection of the Adepts with the
foundation and spread of the Theosophical Society, of an inner core of chelas or disciples
as the active agents of the Adepts, both in the Society and the Movement, of the practical
possibility of a direct connection with these Adepts and their chelas through Madame
Blavatsky, was kept sedulously concealed until after the arrival of H.P.B. and Col. Olcott
in India. A few Fellows suspected from occasional personal hints given them, or by
inferences from the accessible teachings, that more might be learned. But H.P.B. turned a
deaf ear to all prayers and entreaties in that direction, bidding the aspirants join the
Society, to study the published literature, and apply themselves actively to the Objects
of the Society.

In India the religious convictions of the inhabitants

--- 114

are, quite in contrast with the West, the predominant factor in daily life. The
spiritual and mental heredity of the populace is such that the teachings of Theosophy have
in them nothing of the incredible or revolting to inherited ideas. Bound and fettered as
they are by rigid castes and creeds, separated by alien tongues, crippled by an enormous
percentage of illiteracy, abused by a priesthood which keeps them in subjection to gross
idolatries and superstitions, ground by an ever-present poverty, the vast majority of the
Indian populations are, nevertheless, deeply religious in feeling, of simple and kindly
lives, imbued with the ideas of guardian spirits, of tutelary deities, of the near
presence of the immortal and invisible, and of the sacredness of all life. The country is
full of Sannyasis, Sadhus, and Faquirs, many of them men of the noblest and most
self-sacrificing character who have exempted themselves from all restrictions of caste and
worldly life and who wander the length and breadth of the land keeping alive the reverence
and faith of the populace, practicing and inculcating the great virtues of all time. And
among the educated classes are very many highly intelligent men profoundly versed in the
philosophical teachings of the ancient sages, Rishis and Mahatmas.

Almost from the first moment of their entry the Founders met with a sympathetic and
understanding reception from the Hindus, and in this kindly atmosphere of traditional
appreciation it was natural that the first declaration should be made of the deeper import
of the Theosophical Movement. In The Theosophist for March, 1880, the article
relating to the "Turkish Effendi" was reprinted from Blackwood's. In the
succeeding number appeared "The Theosophical Society or Universal Brotherhood."
This directly identified the Society with its great First Object, and made the first
public proclamation of the Superior Sections. The article is an official and authoritative
announcement, is signed by Kharsedji N. Seervai, Joint Recording Secretary, and has for
its subtitle, "Principles, Rules and By-Laws, as revised in General Council, at the
meeting held at the Palace of

--- 115

H.H. the Maharajah of Vizianagram, Benares, 17th December, 1879."

Thereafter references in the pages of The Theosophist become more and more
frequent; the mysterious Brothers, or Mahatmas, are often spoken of; chelas and chelaship
are discussed, Occultism and its rules are alluded to and, on rare occasions, the names
and designations of various chelas in their differing degrees are guardedly and indirectly
introduced.

Subba Row and Damodar became more and more known in this way both to Hindus and
Europeans. Others mentioned from time to time in peculiar and particular ways in The
Theosophist have remained unknown to the world and the references to them seem never
to have aroused question or comment among Theosophical students. Amongst Europeans, Mr.
A.P. Sinnett and Mr. A.O. Hume, both then resident in India, came into indirect contact
with the Mahatmas through H.P.B.'s agency. These two were witnesses of many phenomenal
occurrences, and wrote numerous letters to the hidden "Brothers." Although they
never met the Adepts personally and were never themselves able to communicate with them
directly, both Mr. Sinnett and Mr. Hume received lengthy communications from them,
"Occult letters" amongst those sent and received in more prosaic fashion. In the
summer of 1881 Mr. Sinnett's book, "The Occult World," was published in London.
This contains long extracts from some of the letters of the Mahatma "K.H.," (2)
written in a script and with a name chosen for the purpose of communicating with lay and
probationary chelas. In these extracts will be found much of permanent value concerning
the real nature of the Theosophical Movement, the purpose of the exoteric Theosophical
Society or Third Section, the rules and discipline of chelaship of the Second Section, the
methods of the Adepts in dealing with humanity, and other Occult

-----------

(1) The complete unexpurgated text of these communications has recently been published
under the title, "The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett," London, T. Fisher Unwin,
Ltd.; New York City, Frederick A. Stokes Company.

-----------

--- 116

matters. In 1882, "Hints on Esoteric Theosophy" was published and contains
much matter bearing directly and indirectly on the existence and activity of the Second
Section. The subject of the Superior Sections, their teachings, work, and the limitations
imposed on and by them in dealing with the complex nature of Man, are largely discussed in
the series of articles, "Fragments of Occult Truth," publication of which was
begun in The Theosophist for October, 1881. In the number of March, 1882, was
commenced "The Elixir of Life," with the parenthetical notation that it was
"From a Chela's Diary," giving the physical discipline and scientific resultants
of successful probationary chelaship, and setting out the conditions precedent to
"Occult preferment." In January, 1883, "Chelas and Knowers" was
printed, followed in the "Supplement" to the issue for July, 1883, by
"Chelas and Lay Chelas." This, perhaps the most important article on Occultism
ever published, sets forth the difference between accepted chelas and the pledged
probationers and neophytes of every degree. It repeats in detail the risks and dangers of
rushing prematurely into "practical Occultism," gives illustrative examples of
failure, and specifies some of the iron conditions of self-discipline necessary. The same
subject was first discussed in a general and guarded fashion toward the close of the last
chapter in "Isis Unveiled." Finally, the leading article for July, 1884,
entitled, "Mahatmas and Chelas," gave in clearest words the nature of Adeptship
and the folly and futility of prevailing ideas among Theosophists in regard to Mahatmas
and the means of approaching Them.

We have selected only a few of the numerous writings which gradually appeared bearing
on the esoteric side of the Theosophical Movement during the first ten years of the
Society's life. Only when these articles and the collateral circumstances of their
appearance are understood can their relation to and bearing upon the incidents connected
with the career of the esoteric Society be properly grasped and the behavior of various
leading persons connected with it be comprehended. To the

--- 117

"rush for chelaship" and to the failures of probationers in Occultism must
the student look for the metaphysical and spiritual explanations of the internal storms
which then and thereafter rent the original Theosophical Society and its Branches.

The extensive circulation of "The Occult World" and "Esoteric
Buddhism," the intense activity of the London Lodge in the pursuit of the Third
Object after the return of Mr. Sinnett to London and his leading position in that Lodge,
most of whose members were Spiritualists and avid for "phenomena," caused many
to believe that the Masters could be reached via mediums, seances, and "psychic
practices" of one kind and another, to the entire neglect of the First Object or the
study of philosophy. The powerful currents that surrounded H.P.B. wherever she went; the
impetus given to curiosity and ambition for "Occult" knowledge by the great
amount of published tales and speculations concerning her and her mission; the preliminary
investigations of the Society for Psychical Research into the Theosophical phenomena - all
these produced a great danger for the selfish, the unwary, the venturesome Fellows of the
Society who had profited spiritually not at all from "Isis Unveiled," from the
Master's letters in "The Occult World," from the repeated instructions and
warnings in The Theosophist, nor from the private communications from H.P.B. and
the Mahatmas to numerous individuals most bent on forcing their way into the sphere of
action of the Superior Sections without regard to the unknown laws and perils to be
encountered. Not until late in 1884, when the independent and misguided energies of the
London Lodge threatened the gravest danger both to its Fellows, to the Society, and to the
Movement, was permission granted, at their petition, to Miss Francesca Arundale and others
to form an Inner Group of the London Lodge as probationers of the Second Section. The
signers pledged themselves to follow strictly the rules and instructions given them. All
this remained secret for many years, but in the volume, "Letters from the Masters of
the Wisdom," Published in 1919, will be found some graphic statements

--- 118

and indications of the conditions prevailing - statements which shed a flood of light
not only on the state of affairs at the time we are discussing, but which are equally
illuminating in their application to the course of affairs since and now among the thirsty
aspirants for Occult powers and knowledge.

During this period the fourth edition of "The Occult World" was published
with its Appendix containing a long letter from the Master "K.H." on the
"precipitation" of "Occult letters" by chelas of the Second Section.
All these events accompanied the "Kiddie incident"; the attack on H.P.B. by Mr.
Arthur Lillie in his pamphlet, "Koot Hoomi Unveiled"; the Coulomb charges and
the investigation by the S.P.R.; the lukewarmness or desertions of the Fellows, and the
violation of their pledges by lay and accepted probationers of the Second Section.

The first decade passed and its results ascertained and weighed as regarded the Society
as a whole, reorganization of the work can be seen in the commencement of The Path
by Mr. Judge, in April, 1886, and of Lucifer in London by H.P.B. in September 1887.
Something of the immensity of the change inaugurated in the public work of H.P.B. and Mr.
Judge can be seen by merely comparing the character and range of contents of these two
magazines with those of the first seven volumes of The Theosophist (1879-86); the
published books in the period 1885-95 with those of the first decade; the growth in
character of work undertaken by the Society in America and England in 1885-95, whether
compared with the history of the Society as a whole in its first ten years, or with its
work and character in India during the same ten years, or with any of the fruits of the
numerous Theosophical Societies now in existence that have sprung up since 1895.

The philosophical and moral lessons and considerations, the sine qua non
conditions of the Superior Sections, the explanation of the numerous failures, esoteric
and esoteric, which beset the work of the first ten years, and which must beset every
similar attempt in all times,

--- 119

are nowhere more clearly and authoritatively set forth than in the article entitled
"The Theosophical Mahatmas." The general circumstances have already been
outlined; the particular occasion was as follows:

Amongst the earliest of the European pledged probationers of the Second Section was Mr.
W.T. Brown. He was a young man who had been reared a strict orthodox Christian, was a
graduate of the University of Glasgow, and had traveled extensively. In 1883, while in
London, he made the acquaintance of Mr. Sinnett and others of the London Lodge, as well as
of some leading Spiritualists, some Continental followers of Eliphas Levi, and students of
medieval Rosicrucianism. He was a member of the Central Association of British
Spiritualists, joined the London Lodge, and became so deeply interested in what he read
and heard of Theosophical teachings that he determined to go to India and devote his life
to the "esoteric doctrine." He was witness of some of the phenomena constantly
occurring at headquarters, received "Occult" messages from one of the Masters,
and besought Col. Olcott, then absent from Adyar on a tour, for permission to share in his
work. He received a long, friendly, but very straightforward reply warning him of the
immense difficulties to be confronted. Undeterred, he set out to accompany Col. Olcott,
and on this trip received further communications from the Master "K.H.," was
visited by the Master in "astral body," and finally met the Adept in his
physical body, recognizing the Master both from the portrait which he had previously seen,
from his "astral" appearance, and from the subject matters discussed. All this
occurred during the latter half of 1883. Mr. Brown was so aroused by his experiences and
studies that he determined to become a probationary chela, and was accepted on probation
in January, 1884. "On that occasion," he says, "I was warned as to the
difficulties of the road which I desired to tread, but was assured that by a close
adherence to truth, and trust in 'My Master,' all must turn out well."

Mr. Brown was at headquarters during the time of

--- 120

the Coulomb accusations, returning to England via the United States. Next he went to
Germany and identified himself with the "Rosicrucians" there. He had written a
pamphlet reciting his experiences in India, which was published "under the authority
of the London Lodge." Next he published a brief autobiography devoted to his
experiences in Rosicrucianism, and finally, early in 1886, came once more to the United
States to associate himself with Mrs. Josephine W. Cables.

Mrs. Cables was a Christian Spiritualist and herself afflicted with psychic tendencies.
Learning of the Theosophical teachings, she had been largely instrumental in forming the
Rochester T.S. in 1882, with Mr. W.B. Shelley as President and herself as Secretary. This
was the first Theosophical Society established in America after the formation of the
parent T.S. In April, 1884, she established The Occult Word, a monthly
"journal devoted to the interests of the Theosophical Society, and for the
dissemination of Oriental Knowledge." The issues appeared irregularly and the
contents show a curious mixture of Christianity, Spiritualism, Mysticism, personal
vagaries on diet, "Asceticism," and "Occultism." Mrs. Cables gave
frequent talks before the Rochester T.S., held seances, and endeavored by every means in
her power to "open up communication" with the Mahatmas. Finally she procured the
assistance of Mr. Brown. In the summer of 1886 Prof. Elliott Coues, President of the then
American Board of Control of the T.S. endeavored to make of The Occult Word the
official organ of the T.S. in the United States. Meantime Mr. Judge had started The
Path, and the character of its contents showed a sure knowledge and the signs of
direct contact with the very Powers Mrs. Cables had been seeking to reach in many ways.
Very evidently it appeared to Mrs. Cables and Mr. Brown that the unknown Masters had not
accorded them that recognition which they felt that they had earned. In The Occult Word
for October-November, 1886, they published a leading editorial article over their joint
signatures. The article is entitled "The Theosophical Mahatmas," and in it the
authors say

--- 121

"There is a great desire among many of our brothers to be put into communication
with the Theosophical Mahatmas, and as we have given much thought to the subject, and
evinced great desire to receive even slight tokens from the Masters, it will be useful to
our brothers to have some of our reflections. We have come to the conclusion that it is
useless to strain the psychical eyes toward the Himalayas.... The Masters have given out
nothing new in the literature of our Theosophical Society. There have been students of
mysticism in all ages... and all of these have found a world of literature opening to
their gaze as they directed their attention to the spheres of the occult.... We need
not think, therefore, that we are having a special revelation by means of our Society...
Therefore, we need not run after Oriental mystics who deny their ability to help us....

"A great many of us have come to think that we have been running vainly after
Eastern mystics and ecstatics, when, within the New Testament itself, we find the Way, the
Truth, and the Life.... We are now prepared to stand by our Essenian Master and to 'test
the spirits' in his name. We have been hunting after strange gods, and have "denied
Him thrice," but with bleeding feet and prostrate spirit we pray that He may take us
once more under His wing.... We have wandered far and suffered for our wanderings. We
have been living on husks, while the gospel of love and soul invigoration has been
always at our hands.... The 'dwellers on the threshold are within.'"

To this manifesto H.P.B. herself replied in an article with the same title, which was
published in The Path for December, 1886. After stating that the feeling expressed
by Mrs. Cables and Mr. Brown, "is undeniably shared by many Theosophists" H.P.B.
goes on

--- 122

"Whether the complaints are justified, and also whether it is the
"Mahatmas" or Theosophists themselves who are to blame for it is a question that
remains to be settled."

We can here give only the briefest extracts from H.P. B.'s article, which constitutes
the view of the Superior Sections on the essentials of the path of probation and the
causes of the wrecks that line the road. The article itself should be read and pondered by
every aspirant to esoteric knowledge until it is ineradicably engraved in his inner
nature, for it relates, not to an isolated instance, but to the inviolable law of the
higher life. She says:

"To the plain statement of our brothers and sisters that they have been 'living on
husks,' 'hunting after strange gods' without receiving admittance, I would ask in my turn,
as plainly 'Are you sure of having knocked at the right door? Do you feel certain that you
have not lost your way by stopping so often on your journey at strange doors, behind
which lie in wait the fiercest enemies of those you were searching for?' . . . Our
MASTERS are not a 'jealous god'; they are simply holy mortals, nevertheless, however,
higher than any in this world, morally, intellectually and spiritually,... members of a
Brotherhood, who are the first in it to show themselves subservient to its time-honored
laws and rules. And one of its first rules demands that those who start... as
candidates... should proceed by the straight road, without stopping on every sideway and
path, seeking to join other 'Masters' and professors often of the Left-Hand Science, that
they should have confidence and show trust and patience, besides several other conditions
to fulfill. Failing in all of this from first to last, what right has any man or woman to
com-

--- 123

plain of the inability of the Masters to help them?....

"Once that a Theosophist would become a candidate for either chelaship or favours,
he must be aware of the mutual pledge, tacitly, if not formally offered and
accepted between the two parties, and, that such a pledge is sacred. It is a bond
of seven years of probation. If during that time, notwithstanding the many human
shortcomings and mistakes of the candidate (save two which it is needless to specify in
print), he remains throughout every temptation true to the chosen Master, or
Masters (in the case of lay candidates), and as faithful to the Society founded at their
wish and under their orders, then the theosophist will be initiated.... thenceforward
allowed to communicate with his guru unreservedly, all his failings save this one, as
specified, may be overlooked; they belong to his future Karma....

"Thus the chief and only indispensable condition required in the candidate or
chela on probation is simply unswerving fidelity to the chosen Master and his purposes.
This is a condition sine qua non, not... on account of any jealous feeling, but
simply because the magnetic rapport between the two once broken, it becomes at each
time doubly difficult to re-establish it again....

"Both the writers may have and very likely they did - "hunt after strange
gods"; but these were not our MASTERS....

"Yet, to those theosophists, who are displeased with the Society in general, no
one has ever made you any rash promises; least of all, has either the Society or its
founders ever offered their 'Masters' as a chromo-premium to the best behaved. For
years every new member has been told that he was promised nothing, but had
everything to expect only from his own personal

--- 124

merit. The theosophist is left free and untrammeled in his actions... unless, indeed,
one has offered himself and is decided to win the Master's favors. To such especially, I
now address myself and ask: Have you fulfilled your obligations and pledges? Have
you... led the life requisite?... Let him who feels in his heart and conscience
that he has - ... let him rise and protest.... I am afraid my invitation will
remain unanswered. During the eleven years of the existence of the Theosophical Society I
have known, out of the seventy-two regularly accepted chelas on probation and the hundreds
of lay candidates - only three who have not hitherto failed, and one only
who had a full success. No one forces anyone into chelaship; no promises are uttered, none
except the mutual pledge between Master and the would-be-chela. Verily, verily, many are
the called but few are chosen - or rather few who have the patience of going to the bitter
end, if bitter we call simple perseverance and singleness of purpose. And what about the
Society, in general?... Who among the thousands of members does lead the life?
Shall anyone say because he is a strict vegetarian - elephants and cows are that -
or happens to lead a celibate life, after a stormy youth in the opposite direction; or
because he studies the Bhagavad-Gita or the "Yoga philosophy" upside
down, that he is a theosophist according to the Masters' hearts? As it is not
the cowl that makes the monk, so, no long hair with a poetical vacancy on the brow are
sufficient to make of one a faithful follower of divine Wisdom. Look around you and behold
our UNIVERSAL Brotherhood so-called! The Society founded to remedy the glaring evils of
Christianity, to shun bigotry and intolerance, cant and superstition and to cultivate real
uni-

--- 125

versal love extending even to the dumb brute, what has it become in Europe and America
in these eleven years of trial?...

"I have never ceased repeating to others as soon as one steps on the Path leading
to... the blessed Masters... his Karma, instead of having to be distributed throughout his
long life, falls upon him in a block and crushes him with its whole weight. He who
believes in what he professes and in his Master, will stand it and come out of the trial
victorious; he who doubts, the coward who fears to receive his just dues and tries
to avoid justice being done - FAILS. He will not escape Karma just the same, but he will
only lose that for which he has risked its untimely visits....

"And now repeating after the Paraguru - my Master's MASTER - the words He
had sent as a message to those who wanted to make of the Society a 'miracle club' instead
of a Brotherhood of Peace, Love and mutual assistance - 'Perish rather, the Theosophical
Society and its hapless Founders,' I say perish their twelve years' labor and their very
lives rather than that I should see what I do today: theosophists, outvying political
'rings' in their search for personal power and authority; theosophists slandering and
criticizing each other as two rival Christian sects might do; finally theosophists
refusing to lead the life and then criticizing and throwing slurs on the grandest
and noblest of men, because... those Masters refuse to interfere with Karma and to play
second fiddle to every theosophist who calls upon Them and whether he deserves it or
not."

The history of the Theosophical Society is the history of the failure of Theosophists
in high and low position to lead the life inculcated in their own Objects and their

--- 126

own professions; is the record of the failure of the lay and pledged probationers of
the Second Section to keep their pledges in "simple perseverance and
singleness of purpose."

The case of Mrs. Cables and Mr. Brown has been selected because it is public and
typical of the hundreds of cases before and since of those who started with fair
prospects, in all the glory of a fresh enthusiasm, with all the general and particular
advantages, help, and guidance that past Karma and personal contact with the Teachings and
the Teachers could give them, and who nevertheless failed miserably because they would
not, and not because they could not, adhere to the lines laid down by those very
Masters whom they longed to come in contact with as accepted chelas.

Mr. Brown returned to England, later went to India and there married an Eurasian lady;
he returned to the fold of orthodox Christianity, and has never since been heard of in
connection with chelaship. Mrs. Cables speedily turned the Rochester T.S. into the
Rochester Brotherhood, and her magazine into the exponency of the various phases of
"Mysticism" and "Occultism" that attracted her fancy from time to
time. Neither Mrs. Cables nor Mr. Brown appears ever to have questioned their own
instability of purpose, their own inconsistency of action, their own utter failure to
abide by the conditions they had themselves invoked. Was this course of conduct unique on
their part or was it but a manifestation of those very defects and weaknesses of human
nature which must be fought and conquered by the candidate for chelaship?

History is more than the narration of events; even the most
personal and short-sighted recognize that actions do not perform themselves. There is no
action without a being to make it and to feel its effects. No one's minutest action stands
alone and without relation.

History is the story of the persons and personages who performed the actions, as well
as of the events themselves; but even more, if its chronicle is to be of any value to the
student, he must be concerned in the meaning of the incidents which crowd the stage; in
the parts played by the various actors in the drama; in the lessons to be learned in
relation to the larger drama of life itself in which he and all other sentient beings are
concerned.

Behind the arras of the visible lies the real and enduring world of causation,
the world of immortal Souls engaged in the battle of Life - the pilgrimage of spiritual
and mental evolution, in which all are involved. Thus the history of the Theosophical
Movement becomes a study of the operation of the Law of Karma, in which, every
living Soul is equally concerned.

The moment anyone takes this position he is on the plane of consciousness of the
Superior Sections of the Theosophical Society; he is studying particular persons and their
actions in the light of Universal Principles - in the light of the teachings of
Theosophy, exoteric and esoteric.

From the beginning it was the Theosophical Society which attracted the attention
of friends and foes alike. As it was the visible body, the heredity and preconceptions of
the race made the thing visible, the reality. Its declared platform of Objects was
universally attractive,

--- 128

so long as those Objects remained in the region of ideals; an abstraction which one
could profess without disturbance, external or internal.

But when it was ascertained that the Society was in fact but a vehicle for the
dissemination and serious study of Theosophy; when it was seen that the careful study and
comparison of the various religions and theories, philosophical and scientific, led
straight to the unavoidable inference that the only value in any or all of them lay in
what they had in common, not in their mutual exclusions; that the various differences were
mutually contradictory and destructive; that in Theosophy alone was an inclusive Wisdom,
self-convincing and self-explanatory of all and everything - then the Theosophical Society
became and continued to be the target for every species of assault and attack that the
adherents of sectarianism, whether in religion or science, could devise. And when it was
perceived by the Fellows that the Objects of the Society were not merely formal and
academic; that the serious study of Theosophy produced wholly unlooked-for results in
themselves, compelling them to choose between their predilections and their professed
principles, by far the greater part either left the Society altogether, or lapsed into the
hypocrisy which pretends one course of action while following another. The active and earnest
Theosophists have always been but a scant fragment of even that handful of humanity
which from time to time has called itself Theosophical

The actual active and visible Head of the Theosophical Society was at all times Col.
H.S. Olcott. To his zeal was due its foundation, to his ardent devotion its spread, to his
abilities and sacrifices its successes. The Society itself more and more became to him the
one Object of his existence; to it and for it he gave his all.

The case was quite otherwise both with H.P.B. and William Q. Judge. To neither of them
was the Society ever anything but a body, an instrument, an imperfect and faulty machine
for conserving energy and putting it to use. Both of them were Co-Founders with Col.
Olcott of the Society, both of them gave without

--- 129

stint to its support and defense, but only and always as a mere means to an end.

As President-Founder of the visible Society, Col. Olcott was prominent before the
members and before the public. H.P.B. had as little to do as possible with the conduct of
the Society; Mr. Judge was scarcely known at all in connection with it during its first
decade. At all times until and unless the exigencies of the Movement compelled such
appearances and interferences both H.P.B. and Mr. Judge supported and worked through Col.
Olcott in the affairs of the Society, making themselves in every public way subordinate to
him. His work was the exoteric phase of the Movement; theirs the esoteric.

H.P.B. was the Teacher; for purposes of the Movement she was the direct Agent
of the Lodge of Masters of the Wisdom-Religion. These Masters were and remain, securely
veiled from the prying and selfish approach of humanity, Their existence a matter of
inference only to all but Their chelas and "those with whom They voluntarily
communicate." They are known in the world only through the evidences amassed by
H.P.B. in her writings, through the few communications from Them to others who were, in
every case, brought into relation with Them by and through H.P.B., and through those
longings and aspirations of the human heart which still preserve the faith in Divine
Beings, Elder Brothers to suffering and sinful man. So far as the whole West is concerned
all that anyone knows or infers of the Masters or Their Wisdom-Religion, or Their chelas,
comes, directly or indirectly, from the mission of H.P. Blavatsky. She therefore stood,
and stands, in a position of supreme importance to the whole world; for she stands in
the place of the Masters as Their Messenger until 1975, when she stated that Their
next Messenger would come. All others, their statements and their actions, must be viewed
in the light of her mission, her teachings, her statements, and her example; for she and
none other represented the First Section.

Next to her in importance in the Theosophical Move-

--- 130

ment was, and is, William Q. Judge, as we shall see in due season. The placing of any
persons, however talented or supposedly proficient in Occultism, on the same plane of
knowledge and action in the world as these two; the acceptance of any teachings or
"messages" as Theosophy in contravention of the recorded statements of
these two, is to deny in fact the very Source of the Message of Theosophy, is to attribute
to the Masters Themselves the fallibility of human nature. To take such a position is to
imagine that They chose an untrustworthy direct Agent to deliver Their Message to
humanity; that they permitted Their Message to be faultily and imperfectly recorded; that
They left the world and the sincere student alike at the mercy of claimants of every kind,
and without any sure guide or landmark of philosophy and example.

H.P.B. represented the First Section of the Theosophical Movement; W.Q. Judge
represented the Second Section, and Col. H.S. Olcott the Third Section - or Theosophical
Society proper. The evidences are abundant and overwhelming, as we shall see. Colonel
Olcott was never, from the standpoint of the Superior Sections, other than a probationary
chela. It is thus important to consider his dual position: on the one hand, the
President-Founder of the Society, its guiding genius and chief figure before the world; on
the other hand, a struggling probationer, fighting and failing over and over again in his
efforts at self-discipline and self-mastery. In the esoteric study of the Theosophical
Movement, the actions of Col. Olcott the President, in all their contradictions and
confusions, have to be studied in the light of Col. Olcott, the aspirant for accepted
chelaship of the Second Section. Pathetic and disillusioning as is the task, it should be
tempered in writer and reader alike by the reflection that the story of Col. Olcott is the
story in advance of what confronts every aspirant to the same up-hill Path; the extent to
which we learn the lesson of his failures is the measure of our debt to him.

In the article "Chelas and Lay Chelas" before referred to, H.P.B., in
discussing the requisites and diffi-

--- 131

culties of probationary chelaship of the Second Section, illustrates some of her points
by incidental reference to Col. Olcott. She says:

"All were refused at first, Col. Olcott, the President himself, to begin with; and
as to the latter gentleman there is now [July, 1883] no harm in saying that he was not
formally accepted as a Chela until he had proved by more than a year's devoted labors and
by a determination which brooked no denial, that he might safely be tested."

On this subject Col. Olcott himself says in a letter written in 1881 and published in
"Hints on Esoteric Theosophy, Number I," that he was "provoked and
exasperated" by the "selfish and cruel indifference of H.P.B." to his
"yearnings after the truth," as well as by "the failure of the Brothers to
come and instruct" him. He himself gives the reasons both for the delay and his own
misunderstandings:

"I got that proof in due time [of the existence of Masters]: but for months I was
being gradually led out of my spiritualistic Fool's Paradise, and forced to abandon my
delusions one by one. My mind was not prepared to give up ideas that had been the growth
of 22 years' experiences, with mediums and circles.... But now it was all made clear. I
had got just as much as I deserved.... So... I adopted those habits - and encouraged those
thoughts that were conducive to the attainment of my ends.

After that I had all the proofs I needed, alike of the existence of the Brothers, their
wisdom, their psychical powers, and their unselfish devotion to humanity. For six years I
have been blessed with this experience... and yet after all these years not only not made
an adept, but hardly having achieved one step towards adeptship. "

--- 132

Colonel Olcott was in his forty-fourth year at the time; an age, when, owing to the
physical and psychical limitations of the human instrument, the constitutional changes
necessary to successful chelaship present the extreme of difficulty, even granting that
all other conditions are of the most favorable. What his actual condition was is further
indicated in the same letter:

"If you will only reflect what it is to transform a worldly man, such as I was in
1874 - a man of clubs, drinking parties, mistresses, a man absorbed in all sorts of
worldly public and private undertakings and speculations - into that purest, wisest,
noblest and most spiritual of human beings - a BROTHER, you will cease to wonder or rather
you will wonder, how I could ever have struggled out of the swamp at all, and how I could
have ever succeeded in gaining the firm straight road.

"No one knows until he really tries it, how awful a task it is to subdue all his
evil passions and animal instincts, and develop his higher nature....

"From time to time one or another Brother who had been on friendly terms with
me... has become disgusted with me and left me to others, who kindly took their places.
Most of all, I regret a certain Magyar philosopher, who had begun to give me a course of
instruction in occult dynamics, but was repelled by an outbreak of my old earthly nature.

"But I shall win him back and others also, for I have so determined; and whatever
a man really WILLS, that he has....

"If my experience is worth anything, I should say... that however great a man may
be at this side of the Himalayas, he begins his relations with the Brothers on exactly the
same terms as the humblest Chela who ever tried to scale their Parnassus; he must 'win his
way.'"

--- 133

Every probationer of the Second Section will be prepared to agree with Col. Olcott's
statement of the difficulties of the effort to conquer "these vices of the ordinary
personal man"; to sympathize with him in his struggles, failures, and renewed
determination to continue on the path of probation. Few as yet have had the experience of
the fiery furnace requisite to have a just appreciation of the far more difficult and
onerous task of facing and conquering the universal vices inherent in human nature - the
very crucible that his position as President-Founder and his "determination which
brooked no denial" as an aspirant for chelaship, compelled Col. Olcott to enter. And
it is this prolonged ordeal that we must now study in its effects. We have already touched
on the failure of the probationers, Col. Olcott among them, "to defend the honour of
a brother Theosophist even at the risk of their own lives," when H.P.B. was assailed
by the Coulombs, the missionaries, and the Psychical Research Society. We have entered
more largely into the primary obligations of chelaship in discussing the failures of Mrs.
Cables and Mr. Brown. We must now trace Col. Olcott more particularly in his relation to
H.P.B. as chela to Guru, in the incidents preluding the formation of the Esoteric Section
of the Theosophical Society.

The pledge taken by Col. Olcott was not different in spirit from that taken by every
neophyte of the Second Section. Its essential features, so far as it relates to the
matters under review, are contained in the following clauses:

"I pledge myself to support, before the world, the Theosophical Movement, its
leaders and its members; and in particular to obey, without cavil or delay, the orders of
the Head of the Section in all that concerns my relation with the Theosophical
Movement."

The student will do well to note, (1) that the taking of the pledge is voluntary on the
part of the applicant;

--- 134

(2) that it pledges entire obedience to the Head of the Section, who was and is H.P.B.,
in all that relates to the Theosophical Movement; (3) that her public teachings, the
Objects of the Society formed at her instigation, no less than her private teachings and
individual instructions, constitute and comprise her orders, which every neophyte of the
Second Section pledges himself to obey. Not until the candidate was making strenuous and
measurably successful efforts to embody in his own life all Three Objects of the Society
was he even eligible for consideration as an applicant for the probationary degree of the
Second Section. Not until he fulfilled all the conditions of the pledges of the
probationer was he in any way eligible to the higher degrees of the Second Section.
Meantime he had constantly to bear in mind that no one would enforce or compel his keeping
of his pledge; from start to finish his course must be self-induced and self-devised. In
the words of Col. Olcott's letter before quoted from, each applicant would get just as
much as he deserved; he need look for no extraneous help "to achieve that which no
man ever did achieve except by his own self-development." Or, as expressed in
"Chelas and Lay Chelas":

"The Mahatmas are the servants, not the arbiters of the Law of Karma.
Lay-Chelaship confers no privilege upon anyone except that of working for merit under the
observation of a Master. And whether that master be or be not seen by the Chela makes
no difference whatever as to the result; his good thoughts, words, and deeds will bear
their fruits, his evil ones theirs."

Col. Olcott's course may first be discerned by an examination of the contents of The
Theosophist, which he directed after the departure from India of H.P.B. early in 1885.
His prompt efforts to disclaim any reliance upon H.P.B., and his indirect assertion of his
own paramount

--- 135

importance have been noted in an earlier chapter. (1) When the American Board of
Control was suggested by Mr. Judge to Col. Olcott for the preliminary direction of the
rising tide foreseen by Mr. Judge in America, Col. Olcott appointed Prof. Elliott Coues of
Washington, D.C., whom he met in London and Germany in the summer of 1884, to be its
Chairman and leading figure. From the first moment of his connection with the Theosophical
Society Prof. Coues began to cause difficulties. This requires separate treatment; it is
sufficient here to mention the fact. Finally, Mr. Judge had recourse to Madame Blavatsky,
and through her insistence Col. Olcott dissolved the American Board of Control and
assented to the formation of the American Section of the Theosophical Society. The actual
facts, so far as they could be stated without exposing the internal discords, were placed
on record in the first printed Report of the American Section - that of the second
Convention. The "Supplement" to The Theosophist for November, 1886,
remarks:

"The movement in the United States is gaining strength, but not without friction
always to be expected from the contact of strong personalities.... The reconstructive plan
sent over by the Adyar Council, which supersedes the Board of Control by the organization
of an American Section of the General Council, is to be acted upon in December, and it is
hoped that all may be pleasantly settled."

There is here no apparent perception that anything was involved beyond the
"friction of strong personalities"; no recognition of the fact that the plan
came from Mr. Judge and was accepted only because of the insistence of H.P.B.; no comment
upon the fact that the new Section was to be purely democratic, entirely independent, and
in nominal affiliation only with the Indian autocracy set

---------

(1) See Chapter VII.

---------

--- 136

up by Col. Olcott under the thin mask of the "Adyar Council."

The Path was noted in a friendly way at its foundation in April, 1886, and
occasional brief mention made of its contents. But no notice was taken of the affair of
Mrs. Cables and Mr. Brown, nor of "The Theosophical Mahatmas," in which, as we
have seen, (2) H.P.B., from her sick bed at Ostend, wrote with the vigor and clarity that
the importance of the issues required.

Another matter at the same time received her attention, and this was even more
important, from the exoteric standpoint. Ever since Mr. C.C. Massey had raised the
question that "Isis Unveiled" denied re-incarnation (3) and had claimed that her
later teachings were at variance in other points from her earliest expositions, H.P.B. had
merely denied the allegation and declared that there were and could be no contradictions
in any of her teachings, since all alike came from the Masters. Beyond that she had held
her peace. But after the S.P.R. Report and especially after the divergent activities and
teachings promulgated in the London Lodge under Mr. Sinnett's auspices, these old charges
began once more to circulate. There was a persistent, private, word-of-mouth effort going
on in various quarters to belittle the Occult knowledge and status of H.P.B., and make her
out a medium and a student, as fallible as any of the others. The time being ripe, Mr.
Judge published a long and leading article by H.P.B., in The Path for November,
1886, entitled "Theories About Re-incarnation and Spirits," in which she gave
the actual facts once and for all.

No notice was taken of this article by The Theosophist for the very good reason
that Col. Olcott shared Mr. Massey's opinions and those of Mr. Sinnett and others with
regard to H.P.B., and her teachings and status, as long afterwards, he himself admitted.
(4)

The publication of Lucifer was begun in London in

------------

(2) See Chapter VIII.

(3) See Chapter IV.

(4) Postscript, The Theosophist, "Supplement," April, 1895.

------------

--- 137

September, 1887, with H.P.B., as its guiding genius. For more than a year the only
notice taken by Col. Olcott of the magazine, its contents, or its editor, is confined to
the following official "Editorial Notice," appearing in The Theosophist
for November, 1887:

"At the particular request of Madame Blavatsky, the undersigned assumes
temporarily legal responsibility for the editorship of the Theosophist; she having
undertaken special editorial duty, in connection with the members of our London Lodge T.
S., involving the public use of her name. Adyar, October, 1887.

- H.S. Olcott.

At the Indian Convention, held at the close of December, 1886, the famous T. Subba Row
delivered a series of extemporaneous discourses on the "Bhagavad-Gita" to the
assembled delegates and visitors. These lectures were published in The Theosophist
during the year 1887. In the course of his dissertations Subba Row spoke somewhat
slightingly of the "Theosophical sevenfold classification of Principles" in
Nature and in Man. No defensive notice was taken of the rather invidious tendency of his
statements, then or thereafter, by Col. Olcott or those most closely associated with him.
In the April, 1887, number, therefore, H.P.B. replied in friendly fashion to Subba Row's
criticisms, assuming that they were incidental and oral and their bearing, as affording a
basis for cleavage among Theosophists, overlooked. To this Subba Row replied at length,
repeating, extending, and fortifying his previous statements, and indulging in some sharp
remarks concerning H.P.B. herself. H.P.B. made answer in the August number, clearing up
the matter of the "original expounder" of the "sevenfold
classification," as Subba Row charged her with being. She simply stated that the
classification attacked by Subba Row was not her own, but that originally given out by Mr.
Sinnett in his "Esoteric Buddhism." On this she says - what most Theosophical
students have overlooked - that "Esoteric Buddhism" was written

--- 138

"absolutely without my knowledge, and as the author understood those teachings
from letters he had received."

As Subba Row was a chela, and the issues raised by him largely concerned the Second
Section and its work, H.P.B. confined herself strictly to what could be publicly
discussed. The controversy caused a considerable breach, as H.P.B. had foreseen, and
thereafter Subba Row maintained a coolness towards H.P.B. till the time of his death. Her
subsequent correction, in the "Secret Doctrine," of Mr. Sinnett's erroneous
teachings, made complete the distrust which had been growing in him since 1883. In the one
case and in the other Col. Olcott's sympathies were with his fellow students and not with
his Teacher and Guru, H.P.B. In the Subba Row controversy Col. Olcott kept silent. So, did
Mr. Sinnett, whose erroneous interpretations were the real basis of Subba Row's criticisms
directed against H.P.B. But Mr. Judge from far-away America was a diligent watcher of all
that took place and in the August, 1887, number of The Theosophist with exquisite
tact, skill, and perception he reconciled and cleared up the situation, giving the facts,
but giving them with all gentleness and discretion. But he paid the price of his loyalty
and devotion, no less than of his knowledge and intuition. For this article necessarily
had to lay bare the inconsistencies and "authority" of "Esoteric
Buddhism." And, no more than Subba Row or Col. Olcott, could Mr. Sinnett endure
correction, even at the hands of H.P.B., let alone a young man as obscure as Mr. Judge. Of
all this in due sequence. Meantime, to follow the thread of Col. Olcott's ordeal of
chelaship.

Immediately after the formation of the American Section in April, 1887, Mr. Judge wrote
H.P.B. under date of May 18:

"So many people are beginning to ask me to be Chelas that I must do something....
I know a good many good ones who will do well

and who will form a rock on which the enemy will founder."

--- 139

H.P.B. replied, telling Mr. Judge to go ahead in America and she would soon do
something herself. In the autumn following she began Lucifer, which from its first
number contained articles by her or written under her inspiration, all relating to the
Second Section, although not so named, and all in preparation for the forthcoming change
in the direction of the Movement. The

first volume contained the "Comments on Light on the Path," detailing the
difficulties and requirements of the disciple striving for chelaship. The number for
April, 1888, contained the article "Practical Occultism," by H.P.B., giving
publicly for the first time the "private rules" of the Eastern School, notating
what would-be chelas had to do for their own safety as well as their progress, and for the
first time clearly stating the enormous responsibilities assumed by the Guru or Teacher.
This was immediately followed in the May number by "Occultism Versus the Occult
Arts," stressing the dangers of impure chelaship and the appalling consequences of
falling into the "Left-Hand Path." Coincidently The Path was publishing
articles of similar import.

To the April, 1888, Convention of the American Section H.P.B. sent a long and formal
Letter, which she instructed Mr. Judge to read to the assembled delegates. In this she
placed on record publicly and authoritatively her recognition of the status of Mr. Judge
in the Movement, saying that it was to him chiefly, if not entirely, that the Society owed
its life. The remainder of the Letter was devoted to a recital of the purpose and meaning
of the Society and the obstacles that must be overcome by its members. This was the first
of a series of annual Letters, four in all, which she addressed to the American
Conventions, the last one being written but a few weeks before her death.

If the student will carefully compare the issues of Lucifer, The Path, and The
Theosophist during the years 1887-9 he will be amazed to observe, first, the entire
unity and accord in the two first named in all that concerned Theosophy and the Movement;
secondly, the marked cleavage shown in the contents of The Theosophist dur-

--- 140

ing the same period; the utter ignoring in the latter of the cyclic changes under way
in the Movement as manifested in the writings of H.P.B. and Mr. Judge.

Mr. Judge went to London and there, at the request of H.P.B., drew up the plans and
wrote the rules for the guidance of the forthcoming Esoteric Section of the Theosophical
Society. Nothing in relation to the Esoteric Section by name appeared in public print
until October, 1888. All that we have been discussing on that subject came to light only
after many years. The same is true of the active correspondence which went on during the
interval, between H.P.B. and Col. Olcott, and, to a lesser extent, between Mr. Judge and
Col. Olcott. True as steel, alike to the purposes which inspired them and to Col. Olcott
in his place and share in the Movement, nothing was omitted from their efforts to inform
him of the great issues at stake, to strengthen his weak spots, to keep him in line with
the real Objects of the Society as well as the Movement.

What Col. Olcott's real sentiments were, what his mingled feelings, what his
alternations and violent oscillations during all this period, constitute one of the most
vivid examples and illustrations of what may be called the "pledge fever" of
probationary chelas. Of all this, also, nothing appeared in public print, save as it was
noticeable by such acts of omission and commission as we have been referring to. Long
afterwards, in his "Old Diary Leaves," Col. Olcott writes of the events
narrated, and it is to that source that we may turn for the private and missing links of
evidence which show that the ruffling of the surface of events was but the symptomatic
sign of the inner struggle of probation. In spite of the manifold and manifest disloyalty,
ingratitude, and other violations of their pledges by students and chelas of one degree of
probation or another, of more or less prominence in the Society, neither H.P.B. nor Mr.
Judge ever washed any of the Theosophical "dirty linen" in public; ever uttered
any reproaches, ever in any way exposed the weaknesses and failings of their students or
associates. Only when the Society, the School or the Move-

--- 141

ment was imperiled by the follies of those whom they were trying in every way to shield
and help, did they take the necessary steps to clear the situation. They never either
defended themselves or attacked others. Their work was to lay down the lines of teaching
and direction, to keep those lines energized, and only when the Cause which they
represented was endangered by external pressures or internal ruptures did they intervene.

"Old Diary Leaves" is the personal story of Col. Olcott and has at least the
merit of faithfully picturing, albeit unconsciously to himself, "the true
history" - not of the Theosophical Society, but of Henry S. Olcott, aspirant for
chelaship on "the hard and thorny path." Studied as the diary of a chela on
probation, no more important lessons are anywhere recorded for the study and instruction
of the student of the esoteric side of the Theosophical Movement, and the causes of the
failure of the Theosophical Society, than in "Old Diary Leaves."

The four published volumes of "Old Diary Leaves" bear upon their covers the
legend: The True History of the Theosophical Society.

No doubt this is what Col. Olcott intended and believed them to be. Equally it is
beyond question that in the eyes of the world and of Theosophical students generally he
has been assumed to be that one who had the greatest knowledge of the facts, the best
opportunity for accurate judgments, and the strongest incentive for recording both. These
views have been supported by the transparent sincerity that shines from every page of his
reminiscences, by the wealth of details given by him, by the fact that he was throughout
its life the official Head of the Theosophical Society, that he survived for many years
both his colleagues in the pioneer work of the Movement.

Neither of his colleagues ever wrote for publication anything that savored of the
autobiographical or were at pains to attract attention to themselves; on the contrary,
they, "sedulously kept closed," to the utmost ex-

--- 142

tent that the nature of their mission and the indiscretions of their associates
permitted, "every possible door of approach by which the inquisitive could spy upon
them. The prime condition of their success was that they should never be supervised or
obstructed.... All that those outside their circle could perceive was results, the causes
of which were masked from view." It is passing strange that these statements of the
Mahatma "K.H." in his letter to Mr. Hume, and the other statements of the same
Adept in his letters reproduced in "The Occult World," have never been applied
by Theosophical students to the events and actors in the drama of the Theosophical
Movement. What more necessary and important than that the direct Agent of the Masters in
the world should be shielded and guarded in her Occult nature and functions from all but
those who have "earned the right to know Them?"

At the outset, then, it should be understood that widely as H.P.B. has been discussed
and extensive as have been the controversies which have raged about her mission and her
personality the fact remains that only the scantiest and most fragmentary details exist
relating to her, after the elimination of all the mass of hearsay and opinion, of claims
and counter-claims made by friends and foes as to her Occult status, powers, and
relations. She is to be known, if known at all, only through her writings and by those who
faithfully "follow the Path she showed, the Masters who are behind."

Her writings are devoted entirely: (1) to placing on record her message of Theosophy
and the citation of the evidences and arguments establishing its unbroken existence down
the ages; (2) to articles in explanation and application of the Principles of that
Message; (3) to instruction, advice, and suggestion to the students, individually and
collectively, who to any extent become interested in Theosophy; (4) to the direct and
pointed statements made by her in her letters to and in relation to those persons who
voluntarily associated themselves in her work and who as voluntarily pledged themselves

--- 143

to her guidance and tuition; (5) to the defense of her mission, its instruments and her
associates.

She was interested in and devoted to a CAUSE: nothing else mattered to her, nothing
else was of moment to her, save and except as it might hasten or retard that Cause. Her
writings, as her works, are wholly impersonal; consequently she never touched upon persons
or events save as the exigencies of the Movement, of the Society, or of her pupils made
such attention compulsory on her part. And the same state of fact applies in its integrity
to William Q. Judge, his writings and his works.

On the other hand, "Old Diary Leaves," including the miscellaneous articles
and letters written by Col. Olcott in connection with his Theosophical work, are wholly
autobiographical and personal - in their point of view, in their treatment of men and
events, in their judgment and conclusions. From the basis of the Superior Sections he was
a struggling probationer, wrestling with the foes entrenched in his own inner nature. In
his own eyes, and those of so many others, he was the President-Founder of the
Theosophical Society, wrestling valiantly with its enemies, without and within. The period
from 1881-8 is that of the second septennate of the probationary chelaship both of Henry
S. Olcott and of the Theosophical Society as a body, and the struggles of the one are the
mirror and the reflex of the struggles of the other. The "wandering from the
discipline" of the one is depicted in the stresses which beset the other; their joint
departures from their professed Pledges and Objects the compelling reason for the public
formation of the Esoteric Section of the T.S.